Survivors of the Sun

by Kingslie, Mia

  ‘Well that was short and sweet,’ Georgia said, as they hurried over to see what he had left them. The first box was full of canned refried beans, at least they are full of good nutrients, the second, contained instant noodles, not so healthy, but filling and the third, held two bags of flour, a dozen tiny tins of anchovies, four tins of spam, and two packets of dried lasagna sheets.

  As they ferried this amazing gift of food back to the cottage Georgia thought of all the different choices they now had for that night’s meal. Some sort of Lasagna perhaps?

  But she ended up cooking rabbit stew after all. Deedee and Jamie had returned several hours later, and Deedee dumped six skinned and gutted dead rabbits on the table, saying, ‘right, one rabbit for each bar of chocolate, that should even it out.’ Georgia and Lola had looked at each other, and then shrugged their shoulders.

  ‘Sounds fair to me,’ Georgia said.

  ‘And me,’ Lola added.

  ‘And that, is that,’ Georgia said, a little later on, as she and Lola sat on a stainless steel table, watching the rabbit, potato and carrot stew slowly simmer. Their belly’s rumbling in anticipation, as the commercial kitchen slowly filled with the intoxicating fragrance of cooking meat, vegetables, thyme and rosemary.

  That night, after the others had gone to sleep, Georgia and Lola sat, heads together, at the table. The downstairs room was lit by the soft glow of several candles. Badger and Millie were asleep at their feet, and Ant had curled up on Georgia’s lap.

  She felt relaxed, for the first time in, well it felt like forever. It was now over thirty hours since they had stumbled into the shed from hell, and so far, touch wood, no one was showing any signs of becoming ill. From what Harold had said, they had now well and truly passed the incubation period. They had eaten, and tonight, they would yet again have the luxury of sleeping in a real bed.

  The large map from reception was spread before them. They were trying to find another route, a way that they could somehow bypass Warsaw, and yet would not take them too far off course. What made it more complicated was the immensity of the Truman Dam and Reservoir and the resulting myriad of waterways surrounding the area, blocking their way.

  ‘Going back is out of the question,’ Georgia said, half thinking out loud. ‘We would have to retrace our steps all the way to Clinton just to get round the lake, and that would be stupid,’ she laughed, but it was a tired sound. ‘Much quicker to just go west from here, and then circle all the way round, but that would still mean an extra…,’ she paused, roughly measuring the distance with the side of the pencil, ‘an extra hundred miles.’

  ‘If only we had a boat.’ Lola sighed. ‘Then we could just boat across here.’ She pointed to the waterway running down south of Warsaw. ‘At least we would be on the right side of the water.’

  ‘But we don’t have a boat,’ Georgia said.

  They sat staring at the blue lines on the map. ‘Like claws of some oriental dragon,’ Georgia thought. Claws that had them trapped in their grasp; silly little lines on a piece of paper that in reality represented an impassable body of water. Suddenly she and Lola stared at each other.

  ‘We are totally stupid,’ Lola said.

  ‘Yes,’ Georgia agreed, ‘we really are, how many times, have we walked past all those canoes in the last couple of days?’

  ‘More times than my aching feet want to remember,’ Lola joked, then asked, ‘you ever paddled a canoe?’

  Georgia nodded. ‘Yes, how about you?’

  ‘Yeah, lots of times.’

  ‘Well then,’ Georgia grinned. ‘It looks like we will be getting out of here after all.’

  Chapter Forty Two

  August 12th, Day 33

  Georgia felt elated for all of two minutes, but then as she sat studying the map once more, the actual logistics began to kick over in her mind. She looked up at Lola. ‘Just how heavy are those canoes?’

  Lola shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know, but they can’t be that heavy, after all the holiday makers would have to be able to carry them down to the water, and I can’t see that they would want to put a lot of effort into it.’

  ‘True, but unfortunately for us, this is the wrong river. We would have to lug it overland to the other waterway, that’s um,’ Georgia paused, measuring again, ‘that’s over a mile.’

  ‘Over a mile?’ Lola asked.

  ‘Yes, from what I can tell, then once we are in the water, we simply hug the shoreline, until we are under the causeway, after that, all we have to do is aim for this little inlet, just here, and paddle over.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lola said, following Georgia’s finger, her brow creased in concentration. ‘That’s quite a distance, and what about those lookouts that Harold was talking about? If they are up on the causeway, they will easily spot us.’

  Georgia rubbed her temples feeling really frustrated. She was right, why did everything have to be so hard? ‘There has to be a way, we can’t just give up.’

  Lola sat back in her chair. ‘We could do it after dark, after all, there’s practically no moon at the moment.’

  Georgia considered this, the idea of being out on the water, in the dark was more than a little daunting, especially as they were not familiar with the surroundings. This was definitely not going to be as easy as she had first thought. They debated back and forth, exploring different ideas, all of which seemed impossible, and ending back where they started, stuck on this side of Warsaw and no solution in hand. Finally Lola said she needed to sleep.

  ‘Okay, I will take the first watch then.’

  Lola went upstairs to join the others, Badger and Millie, relieved that one of them finally had the sense to go to bed, followed enthusiastically.

  While there were two perfectly good beds downstairs, the group had automatically gravitated to sleeping in one room. The day before, they had striped the unused beds of all the bedding and pillows, and added them to the communal sleeping area. It seemed that was just how they did things now.

  After a time the light grew dimmer, the candles were beginning to gutter out. So Georgia fetched a couple more, lighting the new wicks from the dying flames. Then tucking Ant back on her lap, began studying the map once more. There had to be a way to do this. For the hundredth time, she wished that she could just google it. But if that were possible, then they wouldn’t be in this position.

  She leaned in, looking past Warsaw and at the Osage River, then she pulled the map closer. Until now, all they had been thinking about was just getting past the fortified town, then getting back on to route 7. But now, she was pretty certain that she had discovered another option. She fetched the map book, then laboriously, flipping through the book and cross referencing the pages with the map, she discovered, that she had indeed found a better way.

  She woke Lola a little while later. ‘I have it,’ she whispered as a bleary eyed Lola followed her downstairs.

  ‘Look, if we work out how to get the canoes past Warsaw, then all we have to do is carry the canoes across this strip of land, which is not more than one and half miles wide. See, where the river runs east. If we get the canoes into the water there, then we can travel by water all the way to the Ozarks, down as far as Grand Glaize Arm below Osage beach. By my calculations, that’s at least nearly ninety miles that we won’t have to walk.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Lola said, ‘that’s brilliant.’ She stifled a yawn. ‘Sorry,’ she grinned sheepishly, ‘didn’t mean to yawn, but you did just drag me out of bed.’

  ‘Sorry about that, but I was so excited I just had to share it with you.’

  ‘Glad you did, and I agree, I really think that could work, and the best part is that it will be much faster travelling that way.’

  As planned, Georgia and Lola were awake and dressed by 6.15 am. The predawn chorus of birds was in full force as they stepped out into the half-light and made their way to the kitchen, the three Boston terriers trotting along beside them. Ruby, Rebecca and the Apaches were still sleeping peacefully, and ev
eryone was still healthy. So as far as that was concerned, the waiting was over. Somehow, providence had been on their side, and they had miraculously avoided succumbing to that terrifying disease.

  There had however, been one last minute scare. Shortly after she had settled down for the night, Deedee had woken up and rushed downstairs to the bathroom, clutching her stomach. Somewhat concerned by this, she had tiptoed after her. Standing silently outside the door, she listened expectantly for the explosive bout of diarrhea. But there had been nothing, and after Deedee sleepily returned upstairs, she entered the bathroom cautiously sniffing. Definitely no fishy smell. The things we do as parents. It had simply been a case of ‘very full bladder’.

  In the kitchen, Georgia fumbled around in her pocket for the lighter, found it and lit the gas. They had big plans for today. The first thing on their agenda, was to check out the canoes, see how heavy they were, and go from there, but first the luxury of coffee.

  Once the coffee had been made, they sat outside on the doorstep. The first rays of sunlight filtering through the soft early morning green of the forest trees around them, steam from their cups circling up in the air.

  ‘It is so beautiful here,’ Lola sighed. ‘It must have been really something before Three-eighteen.’

  Georgia nodded, feeling at peace with the world. As she sipped her brew, a pair of cardinals flew in, alighting on a small bush just a few feet away from them. ‘Now those, I can never get used to,’ Georgia exclaimed. That vibrant red plumage just amazes me. Of course, back home, we have parrots and lorikeets of every imaginable color, but these birds are just something else.’

  Shortly afterwards they rinsed their coffee cups, left them upside down on the draining board and excitedly made their way over to the boat hire. There were about fifteen kayaks, ten canoes, and four boats that Lola called rafts, but Georgia knew them as zodiacs. They dismissed them out of hand. For one thing, they were far too cumbersome.

  ‘I reckon they would get a hole in them as easy as look at them,’ Lola said, ‘and for sure they would never survive being dragged a couple of miles.’

  ‘Just what I was thinking,’ Georgia said, ‘but also I imagine they would be hard to maneuver in the water.’

  She ran her hands over the nearest kayak. ‘Just imagine trying to get Ruby into one of these.’

  Lola tried hard to contain a smile. ‘Poor Ruby, she is having a hard enough time as it is, it wouldn’t work, and kayaks also have a habit of rolling over, that would not be a good look.’

  ‘No it wouldn’t.’

  ‘So I guess,’ Lola continued, tugging at one of the canoes, ‘it is going to have to be one of these,’

  Between the two of them, they managed to slide one down from the rack. It twisted from their hands at the last minute and crashed down onto the grass as Georgia and Lola jumped back.

  ‘You okay?’ Georgia asked.

  ‘Oh yeah, no problem, just was a little heavier than I was expecting.’

  ‘Yes, that caught me by surprise too,’ Georgia said, as she lifted the end experimentally. Heavy but not too heavy I’d say it was around 70 or so pounds. About 30 kilos. Two people can manage 30 kilos, but not with the packs, the shotgun, Ant, and all the other stuff.

  ‘So, do you think we can manage it?’ Lola asked, doubt in her voice.

  ‘I am sure we can, if there’s a will, there’s a way, and if Lewis and Clark could do it, then we can too.’

  ‘I guess,’ Lola said, sounding even more doubtful. ‘They had a lot more people, though.’

  ‘Yes, but their boat was much bigger, and their hardships far greater than ours.’

  However, one canoe was not going to be enough. They would definitely need two, for the six of them, the three dogs and all their supplies. They carefully inspected all the boats, finally choosing two canoes, both three seaters, about 18 foot in length, and looking almost new. The only real drawback, Georgia decided, was their color. The aluminum hulls had been painted a God-awful vibrant yellow. No doubt so staff could easily locate and rescue canoers who managed to loose themselves amongst the rushes.

  ‘We are going to stick out like a pink pig in pink pants in these,’ Georgia muttered, as she rolled one over.

  Lola laughed. ‘Not if we are travelling at night, that’s the plan right?’

  Georgia nodded. That was exactly what they were going to do. As foolhardy as it seemed, the plan was to somehow carry the canoes under cover of darkness down to the water’s edge, and pray there were no lookouts on the outer causeway over the river. It wasn’t much of a plan, and there were a lot of if’s and but’s. Nevertheless they had both agreed that if they didn’t at least try, they wouldn’t get anywhere.

  Once the canoes were chosen, they spent some time over the paddles, and finally decided that they would need to take along two extra sets.

  ‘Nothing worse than being stuck up shit-creek without a paddle,’ Lola said.

  ‘Isn’t that supposed to be, up shit creek in a barbwire canoe without a paddle?’

  Lola grinned broadly, ‘yeah that too, at least these canoes aren’t barbwire.’

  Having chosen their means of transport, (and feeling very positive about it) they went back to the cottage to wake the others and let them know the change of plans.

  Georgia had expected some resistance to the idea of traveling by canoe, but any qualms were hastily put aside as soon as they had learned it would save them at least ninety miles of walking. (And no carrying.) At that point, everyone, including Ruby assured Georgia and Lola that it was a brilliant plan.

  ‘In my time, I was a Girl Guide Leader, and I often took the girls canoeing.’ Ruby had quite puffed up with pride as she had shared this titbit, ‘and,’ she added, ‘if I say so myself, I was rather good at it.’

  Once breakfast was over, they spent some time organizing food supplies. The instant noodles, sheets of lasagna, the tins of anchovies, still not sure what to do with them, the salt, and a selection of herbs and spices, were distributed amongst the packs and bags, along with the flour, which had been double wrapped in trash bags. The canned refried beans and tomato soup were loaded into the long suffering shopping caddy.

  They napped most of the afternoon, rising at six p.m. After tidying up the room and collecting all their gear, they headed over to the kitchen. There, they each had an instant noodle soup, while the dogs shared the last of the rabbit stew, and as soon as dusk fell, the kitchen left sparkling clean, and the water bottles replenished with boiled water, they were ready to leave.

  It was decided that they would each carry their usual load and despite everyone’s assurances that they would manage, Georgia knew it was not going to be easy, especially as they were going to have to do two trips. They could only carry one canoe at a time, and they could not risk leaving anything behind.

  Rebecca and Jamie were given a set of paddles each to carry, which thankfully, were not that heavy as they were made from some sort of plastic, but even so they would be cumbersome. Ruby was put in charge of Ant, the pink bag over one shoulder, her handbag over the other. (And everyone was put in charge of keeping an eye on her.) Now would not be a good time for her to get all forgetful and leave Ant somewhere on the trail.

  At first Lola and Georgia attempted to carry the canoe by the rope handles they had rigged up, staggering with the weight, as they tried to keep the balance of the boat, but they had gone less than a hundred yards when Lola cried out, ‘stop, stop, stop, my arm feels like it is about to rip free from its socket.’

  ‘Oh thank God,’ Georgia breathed, gratefully depositing the boat onto the ground. ‘I am glad it isn’t just me.’ Then as she realized that the Apaches had carried on ahead without them, she called out, ‘hey wait up!’ They came to an abrupt standstill, giving a little wave as Millie and Badger, full of energy, came prancing back to see what the delay was.

  ‘This is going to be harder than I thought,’ Georgia gasped.

  ‘Let’s try carrying it up on our shoulders,’
Lola suggested.

  ‘Okay, just let me catch my breath.’

  After a moment they bent down, grabbing at the canoe, but they were totally out of sync with each other and the boat slipped free from their grasp, landing in the thick grass with a thump.

  ‘At least that wasn’t a thunk,’ thought Georgia, ‘a thunk would have meant it came down on something hard or sharp.’ To carry a boat all the way to the water and then find it had been holed, would be too much. ‘Okay, let’s try this again, how about we both grab the sides and try lifting and rolling it up over our heads at the same time.’

  ‘Okay,’ Lola called, ‘one, two, and three.’

  On the count of three, with considerable effort, they hoisted it up, and this time it was a lot easier.

  The last of the daylight faded away, and they fell silent, concentrating on their footing. They left the pale ribbon of the road behind, and began working their way through long grass and patches of scrub. They had to stop a couple of times to catch their breath, but by the time they neared their destination, Georgia was gritting her teeth against the building pain, ready to cry. She imagined that Lola was faring no better.

  Ahead of them they could make out the blackness of the river and a faint glow that had to be Warsaw. She stared into the darkness, occasionally making out what appeared to be shadows crossing back and forth before flickering torches. Were those the guards? She didn’t know, and right now, she didn’t care, she just wanted to get down by the water and put down the damn canoe.

  At that moment, mostly because she had not been paying attention to where she was going, her foot snagged in a root or something and she nearly went careering down into the undergrowth. The canoe slid precariously forward and Lola muttered another curse. For one terrible moment, it seemed that they would lose hold of it altogether, and it would go crashing down, alerting anyone nearby to their presence. But by sheer will power Georgia managed to right herself, keeping a death like grip on the gunnels.