Dangerous Shores: Book Three; The End of the Road

by Christine Conaway

  Short one cow that he knew was due to drop her calf any day he had headed out against her Dad’s protests. The temperature had plunged down to -10 F and visibility had dropped to zero. The wind howled around and through the buildings, hiding equipment, vehicles and fences with drifting snow.

  The next morning the sun shone down without a degree of warmth. The air had stilled without a whisper of a breeze but it looked like someone had re-sculptured their entire property by covering it with a blanket of diamonds. Without sunglasses you were as blind as if the snow was still blowing.

  In direct contrast to the yard, the slope in front of the house was without snow, it had been blown down to the tree line by the creek and lower fence.

  They had found Uncle Jerry, the cow and calf, buried under a huge snowdrift by the creek. All three had lived, but the cow lost half of her tail and Uncle Jerry lost the end of two fingers and his baby toe. She knew what frostbite looked like.

  “There we go,” Maggie said as she inspected Ellen’s fingers. She dried them off and had another look and declared them better. “Now, put these on and we’ll cover them up with a baggie to keep the water off.” She held out a pair of army-green wool socks. “A layer of wool is so much warmer than cotton or pulling your sleeves down.” She looked pointedly at Ellen’s stretched out cuffs.

  “I made some more chocolate for you guys.” Hannah told her, and laughed when Ellen held up her sock covered hands, she was unable to pick up anything without the chance of it sliding through her covered fingers. She could manage one cup at a time but that would be all.

  “Never mind. You go I’ll follow you up.”

  “Put something on besides just that sweater. It’s freezing out there.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes so the two girls sitting at the table could see her. They giggled as she had planned. “Yes Mom…” They giggled again.

  “Nana only wants you to stay warm.”

  “Ha! Now you know she gives orders to everyone because she cares about us. Remember your words the next time she tells you to do something and you don’t want to do it. We all have to do what we are capable of whether we want to or not.”

  Dana grinned back at her. She knew Hannah must have heard her arguing with her Nana earlier. She had been told to make up the V-berth and didn’t understand why it had to be her and Olivia doing it, when they didn’t sleep there.

  “Okay…” Dana said and went back to playing with Olivia and Holly.

  Hannah wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, opened the hatch and doors. A cup in each hand she went topside. Maggie closed the doors behind her.

  Alan had the binoculars trained on a body of land they were coming up to.

  Frank had the book in his lap turning pages as he read and studied the pictures. “That has to be it.”

  With the picture firm in his mind he took the binoculars and studied the area. After a couple of minutes, he said, “I believe that’s Port Angeles.” He set the glasses on the table.

  “So what do we want to do? Go in to the marina, anchor out? What?” Frank studied each face. He paused when Ellen began to speak. He would defer to her because she was the only person on the boat with any experience with the weather, or the surrounding waters. Admittedly, she had said it wasn’t first hand, but it was far more than any of them had.

  “I think we should anchor on the leeward side of the spit, stand watch and leave at the first signs of trouble. If nothing bad happens we can go to the docks and find some more fuel.” She stood staring in front of them. “I really miss having a dinghy,”

  “I’m with Ellen on this. I have no wishes to interact with any more people than we have to.” At that point Alan would have always sided with Ellen on anything she decided.

  “I’ll be a lemming, whatever you guys decide is fine with me.” Hannah said and laughed at the expression on Frank’s face. It was clear he had no idea what she was referring to.

  Ellen laughed and they all looked to Rob. He had been sitting in silence since coming from below.

  “Rob, do you have an opinion?” Frank asked.

  “Not really. I’m good with whatever you guys decide. I am too cold to even think right now.”

  “He’s a lemming too. Frank you and Ellen decide for us. We all kind of feel like you two know more about what we’re doing anyhow. So it makes sense for the two of you to make the decisions.”

  Frank looked to Ellen, “What do you think?”

  “I don’t care. It makes sense and we have Maggie for the deciding vote because she is the least involved.”

  “Okay, I need a decision soon.” Alan had been angling to the spit and it was either turn and go north or in behind the piece of land. The sun was going down and he was afraid of running aground. Logic told him the water had to be shallower alongside the spit and he needed guidance.

  Frank hurried to the bow while Ellen rolled in the jib. Frank had Alan circle away from the spit of land and began to let the chain out. The anchor touched before all of it had been let out. He continued until he had twenty feet out clipped on the anchor ball and let the rest of the chain and another thirty feet of line. They drifted until the line tightened and after watching for several minutes he determined the anchor was holding.

  He walked back to the cockpit. “Okay we’re good. The water is only about six feet deep right here.”

  “Alan, don’t move fast but go down and bring up the guns.”

  “Aww, not again. Man I’m beginning to really hate this shit.” Alan mumbled and went below.

  Chapter Thirty-one - Where is everyone?

  “What’s going on? Did you see something?” Ellen slowly looked around. She caught movement on the sand spit. They were only about sixty yards from the sand. There appeared to be a pathway or narrow road almost to the end.

  Before Alan had a chance to bring up one of the rifles, a voice called out to them.

  “Ahoy the boat!”

  “Don’t come any closer. If you’re armed turn around and leave. We don’t want any trouble.”

  “I’m not. I’m not armed. No one here is. The soldiers came and took everything. They were going to bring food and medical people, but they never came back.”

  “The soldiers? What soldiers? When was this?”

  The person walked closer and they could see that it was an older man. Trailing along behind him was a young boy or child. He was bundled up so it was hard to determine the sex.

  “Almost two months ago. They weren’t our soldiers or at least we didn’t think so because they didn’t speak English. They came in and took all the young men, the medical personnel that survived the die off and our guns. They said they were coming back but they never did.”

  “We don’t have any extra food. And we lost our dinghy in that storm the other night so we can’t come to shore.”

  “We don’t need any food. Most of us kept ours hidden after the first raid. You lost your dinghy?”

  “Yes we did. We didn’t want to come in the harbor. We’re headed north from here. Have you heard how it is up there?”

  “Hey, you wouldn’t be those guys coming up from California would you? Heard about someone on a boat was trying to get to the northern part of the state.”

  Frank was starting to lose his voice from yelling. The cold air hurt his throat. He nodded at Ellen.

  “That might be us. Did they say anything else?”

  “They said if you were to stop to say they took the town back and Cal was still on the farm. Guess they set up some kind of trading post and got the start of a militia going.”

  “Thank you that’s good to hear. Did you hear anything from up north?”

  “Can’t rightly say. Say you guys wouldn’t have anything to trade for a nice hard bottom dinghy would you?”

  Frank looked at Ellen eyebrows raised in question. “What do you think? We have those extra guns we could trade.”

  “I have no problem with that as long as they don’t turn them on us before we get out of here.” />
  “What are you looking to trade for?” Frank called.

  “Well we’ve got a few beef cattle we can’t butcher. A handgun would be good. We have some 9mm ammo and some 38 shells and a couple boxes of 22 shells. If you got anything to go with those, we’d surely appreciate it.”

  “We might be able to help you out some.” Ellen yelled.

  “You sure you don’t want to come on in to the dock?”

  Frank blew our air and it turned to instant fog in front of his face. He looked from Ellen to the others. “What do you guys think? We could use the dinghy.”

  “How many people do you have?” Rob hollered. The man on shore had his arms around the child. He could see that they had to be as cold as they were.

  “Fifty-three. All over sixty and under thirteen.”

  “Okay, but we are heavily armed and won’t hesitate to shoot if we think we are in danger. Are you good with that?”

  “I’m good. Like I said we don’t have anything but, garden tools, a bow and arrow and some kitchen knives. I’m going to take the boy and go back. You all can come in whenever you feel comfortable. Just follow the spit in and you’ll see the other boats at the dock. There’s plenty of room on the main dock. You can’t miss it.”

  “Alright. We’ll be in.” Frank sat and looked at the others. Every pair of eyes were fixed on his. “We don’t need a vote on this guy. We could be making a big mistake here. Or, I’m being overly cautious. I’d like some of your input.”

  “Well, who would come out here and bring a child? He sounded sincere, but we’ve heard sincerity before and look what happened. I’m going to leave it to you guys and go check on the girls.” Hannah stood, wrapped her blanket tighter and moved to the hatch. “Damn, I never thought it could be this cold anywhere but in the Arctic.”

  “It might give us the opportunity to find some more fuel. He did say there were other boats at the dock.”

  Ellen looked at Frank, “Alan is right. We’ll need all the fuel we can carry. The rest of this trip is all uphill from here. We’ve got currents, tides and the wind all against us. We can move during the flood tides, but we’ll do better with the use of the motor with the main sail up for stability but it’s going to require lots of fuel.”

  “Okay. I guess we go in armed prepared for anything. We need to leave our raingear for the girls.”

  Rob had not taken the rain jacket off when he left the wheel. It had done a good job breaking the wind and he was loath to leave the comfort of it, especially after listening to all the complaints of being cold. His fingers were cold but he used his pockets to warm them. “I sure do hate to give this up.”

  “Don’t take it off out here. Go below and give it to your Mom or Hannah. They are going to have to be out here in the cockpit while we’re gone.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows, “And why are we giving up the jackets? It does an excellent job of breaking the wind and keeping me warm?”

  “Because we will be on the move and that will warm us some. They will be sitting still and between the wind and cold they will need to keep warm. Just for exactly the same reason you just voiced. Don’t be a sissy and give it up.”

  Frank stood to remove the jacket, prepared to give it up. “Not up here. Go down below. Find anything you can put on over what you’re already wearing. Layers will help keep us warm.”

  Finally, they were ready to move. They looked like a bunch of vagrants with their eclectic assortment of clothing. They had elected to wear their army camouflage as their outer layer with an assortment of shirttails hanging below. While the men had army footwear, Ellen had left her boots for Maggie. With additional socks Maggie’s feet would stay relatively warm. Ellen had put on an extra pair of socks and tennis shoes. She’d considered her rubber knee high boots, but they never had fit well and they made her feet sweat.

  “Rob, would you pull the anchor please? I’m going to start the motor for the trip in.”

  “You got it.” Rob went forward. Frank started the motor and moved ahead to take the tension off of the anchor. Rob had it up the chain in the locker and clipped down within minutes.

  They were each armed with rifles and an assortment of handguns. Frank had packed the biggest duffle with the extra hand guns of the caliber the old man had mentioned. They had decided to give them nothing extra as the prospect of them needing their guns and ammunition in the future was reinforced by the old man’s words. He had said the army who had confiscated their people and arms would be returning. They didn’t know if the military had even made it up to the area they were headed to, but they were beginning to learn not to count on anything. If one of them did not see it with their own eyes, they would consider it gossip.

  They decided as a group that no one would take their protection away. If they had to use it to defend themselves, they would. If they had to use it to defend others from harm, they would. They would not go looking for trouble but if it landed on their doorstep, they would fight to keep what was theirs.

  “What the hell?” Frank said. It appeared as if all the boats had sunk at the dock. The few boats that were anchored away from the docks were only visible by their masts sticking out of the water.

  “Who would do something like this?” Ellen wondered speaking out loud. “This is crazy!”

  “I think someone didn’t want the remaining people to have a way to leave. Look at that.” Rob pointed to a 33-foot sailboat tied at an end slip. Someone or something had blown a hole that was above and below the waterline. The boat was held afloat only by the length of the dock lines.

  “If we didn’t need fuel and that dinghy I would turn this baby around and get the hell out of here right now.” Frank edged up to the free space at the dock. Rob vaulted over the side to catch the dock line Alan threw him. With the bow, secure he went to the stern. Ellen threw him the line and he made it secure.

  The old man came through the gate up the dock. It shut with a clang behind him. Without people around to mask the noise it sounded too loud.

  Frank picked up the pack and the 22 caliber rifle and jumped to the dock. He had his own Ar-15 hung from a shoulder strap.

  He was surprised that the old man held his right hand out prepared to either take the bag or shake his hand in greeting. Frank wasn’t sure which so he set the bag down and held his hand out.

  The old man’s hand was callused and strong. His gray eyes met Franks brown ones and a smile appeared on his face. His eyes crinkled into the lines around them. It was apparent the guy had worked outside or he smiled a lot.

  With one hand encased by Frank’s his other closed over the top and squeezed. “It sure is good to see you folks. It’s been a while since we’ve seen friendly faces. Hell it’s been a while since we saw any new faces.”

  Ellen stepped out from behind Frank and asked, “Where is everyone?”

  Chapter Thirty-two - The girls were gone.

  The man didn’t seem surprised by Hannah’s question. He looked over his shoulder “It does look pretty desolate doesn’t it. There used to be almost twenty thousand people who called this town home. Now…I guess it’s just a few of us left. Well, those that live here in town…the rest they’re out there.” He waved his hand to take in the hills.

  “When the soldiers showed up people left. Don’t know if they were caught or not. The ones who stayed thinking help had arrived were soon set straight.” He stopped and faced them. “After hearing the tales coming in from Sequim and farther inland we thought we had somehow missed the sickness that decimated Seattle and Tacoma. Then the soldiers showed up. Everything points back to them. They tried giving people some kind of inoculation, but it seems like those of us who didn’t get it, never got sick. Everyone who received the vaccine died within days.” His voice choked up on the last words and he stopped. “We all lost someone.”

  “I hate to break this up, but is there somewhere warmer we could talk?” Ellen had begun to shiver and she felt cold to the bone. Alan and Rob were doing no better, they were both shakin
g with cold. The only one who seemed not to be effected by the frigid air was Frank.

  The old guy gave a little chuckle, “Forgot you folks weren’t used to our northwest weather. This isn’t even cold but we do have a warm place right up yonder. Names Matt by the way. Meant to say that earlier but we got to talking.”

  Frank was walking beside him and responded, “I’m Frank and that’s Rob and Alan, Rob being the taller one and Ellen is the ice cube behind us.”

  She ignored him. They had walked by several boats tied on the head-walk and every one of them sat low in the water. Finally, she couldn’t stand not knowing.

  “Matt, who did this to all these boats and why?”

  Matt stopped walking and looked around. “Well, this is what the military guys did when people started to get sick. They said it was to contain the sickness. But myself I thought it was to keep people from leaving. I currently don’t and never did think that whatever they had was contagious. Call me paranoid, but I thought it was them that gave it to us. My wife, always wanted to follow the law right down to the letter and that included getting immunized. I swear, most everyone who did get immunized died. We had a couple people who got the shot and didn’t so much as get a cold so maybe they were immune to whatever it was.”

  “You’re not saying anything we haven’t thought ourselves. Do you guys have any vehicles that run?”

  He must have had second thought about giving too many details of their circumstances away because he remained silent.

  “The reason she was asking was we need to try to find some diesel for our boat. The reasoning behind her question was did you have some way to get fuel out of your service stations? We don’t care if you have other working vehicles or not.” Frank said.

  Thinking how uncaring Frank sounded, Ellen interrupted with, “We care. We hope you do have transportation but we don’t have a need for it. We are just hoping for some diesel.”