Getting off the boat was much faster than boarding. I’d spent some time and money last night and got an internet bundle. I hadn’t done much writing, but I had been able to get Annette’s plane tickets switched. Since I didn’t know how bad traffic and getting out of the parking lot was going to be, we went from the boat straight to the airport. I was expecting the traffic to be bad, and it was. We weren’t the only cruise ship to unload at port today, though I was willing to bet we were the only ones who had to end the trip early. I’d gotten her flight for 1:40PM and with an hour getting off, we made it out of the parking lot close to noon.
“Plenty of time,” Annette said.
“You’re supposed to be there three hours early,” I told her.
“You worry too much. It isn’t a big airport like Atlanta. I can be through check-in and security faster than grass through a goose that’s had laxatives.”
I crossed my eyes in frustration. I hated being late. Even with everything going good, my mental plans had been thrown off, I didn’t want to—
“You’re coming down from being in the crush of all those people getting off the boat. Relax,” Tina said, rubbing my arm.
“Lax!” Owen shouted and started humming the ‘One Two I Love You’ song.
I kept the radio off. I was irritated. The trip was cut short, we had to return to port. We were undecided if we were rebooking or taking the refund. We had to get Annette to the airport so she didn’t miss her flight, then we’d go back and get the dogs… and then…
Opus wagged his tail, putting his nose in the hand of the human he was forced to babysit while his regular humans were gone. As far as humans go, this lady wasn’t bad. She smelled like rabbit, which confused him at first, but he knew humans sometimes cohabitate with them for whatever reason. He personally loved to eat them, but to each his own.
She had the leashes in her hands and had Ophelia and Sarge already hooked up. She tried clipping on his, and he stepped sideways. He didn’t need a rope to drag her to the play yard. There were lots of trees, a big fence to inspect, and he suspected that the vile horde of ninja squirrel assassins were out there waiting. He’d be ready.
“I have to put this on you, buddy. I know you don’t need it,” she said kindly and pet him with her free hand.
Opus stopped and considered that. Did she need to pretend to drag him out there? Preposterous, but he saw how some humans were afraid of his canine family, especially all three of them together. He held still as she leaned in and clipped his leash to his collar. He hated it, but Ophelia and Sarge weren’t complaining much. He knew they must be onto this charade. To show he was a good sport, he rubbed his head against her leg, then sniffed her ankle where the rabbit smell was the strongest.
He didn’t like being away from his humans and although there was a communications gap, he understood he had to be here until they came back for him. It worried him, but this was going on the third light and dark cycle. He wondered how much longer someone else would have to take care of his people while he watched over the human who smelled like rabbit.
Opus had mostly watched as Ophelia and Sarge returned the ball to the human. She liked to throw it, so he felt obliged to bring it to her a time or two. Feeling worn out, he sat down and watched as his mate and son played. The day would have been perfect if his humans were—
A scent hit his nostrils, and he let out a sharp bark. Both Ophelia and Sarge stopped as if zapped, then took off at a dead run for Opus who sat by the back door.
“What’s gotten into—” The human’s words were cut off when another human he babysat walked out with… his family?
Opus barked excitedly, throwing away the usual calm exterior he tried to wear like armor. He jumped up happily, making sure not to scare the tiny human or his human, Tina. Rick laughed and pushed him back to four legs, so he threw his weight into the human’s leg and pet the human with his whole body. He hadn’t realized how much anxiety he’d been holding onto… Sarge and Ophelia were there a moment later, but Sarge’s jump for joy almost knocked Tina and the tiny human over. Opus growled and nipped at his shoulder, startling Sarge and making him back off. Opus sat and then wagged his tail and chuffed.
Ophelia was more sedate. She sniffed everyone down, licking their clothing and hands. Opus could smell the salt in their hair and clothes. From that big blue pond he couldn’t see across? That smelled worse, but it had the smell of salt also. He’d have to ponder that. Sarge walked over and put his muzzle under Opus’ and pushed up.
Opus grumbled back good naturedly. Apology accepted.
“They always like this?” the aid asked.
“We’ve never been away from them,” Tina admitted. “Not overnight.”
“For a second, the big guy startled me. He’s so good natured…”
“He was warning his son to not be so excited as to knock over Tina,” the human Rick said.
“That looked—”
“He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, do you, Opus?”
Opus walked to the human he’d been babysitting and rolled over onto her feet, kicking his legs in the air. This accomplished two things. Well, three. He was showing her he was only playful, not mean. Secondly, he was able to rub the rabbit smell on his fur a bit. He loved the smell the way the human Rick loved bacon. Third… He forgot what the third thing was.
“Why is traffic suddenly so bad?” Tina asked as the wipers were going like crazy, barely keeping up with the rain despite the sunlight.
“I don’t know,” I told her.
Tina pulled out her phone for the first time. We’d decided to go back to the hotel we had stayed at before because they had been so accommodating with the dogs, then head out in the morning.
“Oh crap,” she said as I pulled into the hotel parking lot after what seemed like an eternity.
“What?” I asked her.
“After I got through all the messenger alerts, Twitter and eBay stuff, I checked the news. The hurricane has changed course.”
Something cold and shaped like a cannonball seemed to drop into my stomach.
“Where exactly is it coming and when?” I asked her.
“All it says is that it’s tracking more southerly than they expected.”
“How much more southerly?” I asked her.
“Its track looks a lot like Irma’s did a couple years back.”
I cursed quietly. Opus put his head on my lap, and I scratched his ears.
“I’m going to head in and get us a room,” I told her.
“It’s going to take me a minute to get little man and the furry guys unbuckled anyway. This way the van doesn’t heat up and fry—”
“It’s like we’re married and on the same wavelength,” I said, leaning over and kissing her briefly.
Ophelia whined back on the bench seat next to Owen, who had his hand in her fur. I grinned at the jealousy she was displaying. Then again, she didn’t like storms, and the nonstop rain didn’t have any thunder and lightening. Yet.
“Nice,” Owen said into his mirror, petting her roughly.
“Yes, you’re being nice to Ophelia,” as I got out and headed into the hotel.
The lobby was full of people with their bags, lined up everywhere at the counters. The mood in the room was ugly, and the front desk people were apparently all hands on deck. I wiped the water off my arms and face as I tried to jockey my way close to the desk.
“Excuse me,” I asked a red faced guy walking my direction, out the door, “what’s going on?”
He almost didn’t stop but saw me in total confusion and must have taken pity on me.
“Hotel is closing for the hurricane evacuation,” he said.
“Evacuation?” I asked him, confused; Tina had said nothing about an evacuation.
“It hasn’t been called yet, but after Irma, the owners of this chain don’t want to take a chance. They’ve asked guests to leave. At least they’re trying to give us vouchers for the next time.
“Oh man, that sucks.
Sorry to hear it. So the evacuation hasn’t been called?”
“No, it’s something the governor mentioned on the radio and these pansies are shutting the hotel down until after the hurricane has passed. If it even hits here.”
“Yeah,” I told him, “I’d love to have a job as a weatherman. Get your work wrong half the time and you get a pay raise.”
“You got it. I’m heading to a resort a mile up the beach. Rumor was they still had openings. If they do call an evacuation though, I’m out.”
“Make sure you fill up on gas before the crunch happens,” I told him, “and thanks for the info.”
“No problem, good luck.” He gave me a mock salute which I returned. When I got outside, I saw Tina stretching, then opening the side door to let the two and four legged critters out.
“Hold up,” I told her, jogging over.
“What’s up?” she asked as Sarge tried to get out.
She blocked him with her legs and told him to sit, which he did.
“I guess the governor mentioned something about maybe having to call an evacuation. The hotel is shutting down until things pass.”
This time it was Tina who cursed. “I didn’t see anything about an evacuation,” she told me, pulling her phone out of her pocket.
“Checking on things?” I asked her.
“Hello?” she said into her phone. “Yeah. Good! Oh, you’re almost on your flight? Final boarding?”
I realized she was talking to Annette. Luckily I’d rebooked her ticket while we were still on the boat, before things got crazy. I knew how fast plane tickets, gasoline, and other things went when the panic hit. I was starting to feel a little bit of it myself, but the logical side of me had already considered something like this happening and I was going to avoid panic. I got in the van and waited for her to finish her conversation.
“Things are going to go crazy,” I told Opus who’d pushed his way into the middle.
Opus chuffed and put his paws on the console so he could watch Tina. I got my phone out and asked Google for a list of hotels near me.
“Me!” Owen yelled.
“Yes you,” I said and saw on the map just up the road there were miles of hotels if we wanted to stop instead of bugging out.
The one thing I didn’t have in my van was extra fuel. It did hold a stupid amount of gasoline, but the mileage on it was horrible. I remembered horror stories of fuel shortages from the last hurricane and how people got stranded. It would take an entire tank of gas to get out of south Florida and into Georgia or Alabama. I needed to hedge my bets.
“She’s on the plane and safe. What do you think? I know we wanted to maybe hang out a day to wait and see if traffic gets better, but I was wondering…”
“Momma!” Owen called.
“Owen!” she cooed back.
“I’m not sure if we should stay or go. We’re kind of at the tip of the state. It hits anywhere near South Florida, we’re stuck.”
“How much gas do we have?” Tina asked.
“That was going to be my next thing. You mind if we hit up a hardware store, then the gas station before we figure out what we want to do?”
“I don’t mind. Wow, look at the panic setting in.”
I nodded grimly as angry people poured out of the hotel in twos and threes. It actually slowed me down from pulling out of my parking spot for nearly two minutes as people loaded. Once I was on the road, I kept my eyes peeled.
“Over there,” Tina told me, pointing.
I’d already seen it, but I nodded anyway. Owen was singing some song about dinosaurs to Ophelia. He was trying to stroke her fur, but he pulled as much as he petted. She was patient and would have moved before getting annoyed.
“I’ll just be a second,” I told Tina.
As soon as I opened the door, Ophelia hopped off the seat and pushed past Opus and hopped out.
“You can’t come in,” I told her.
She sneezed. With a sigh, I closed my door to see Tina and Opus through the window, one of them smiling, the other giggling. The rain was cold, but contrast that with the wind blowing hot, muggy air, and it wasn’t horrible. I remembered reading that it rained quite a bit in Florida. Was this normal, or the front of the front of the hurricane?
“Let’s see if this hardware store is dog friendly. Just walk right next to me, I don’t have your leash.”
She leaned her head against my leg, rubbing her ear into my pocket until I pet her. She wasn’t as vocal as Opus, but she still got her point across via body language, and what she was putting off as we both walked into the hardware store was more than a little apprehension.
“That’s a beautiful dog—”
The clerk behind the checkout register’s words cut off as if in a choke. He was mid-thirties, and looked like a local, the sun having tanned his already bronze skin. His accent sounded Hispanic. Cuban heritage? Ophelia stayed beside me as I walked over to him.
“Don’t worry about her, she’s the nice one,” I told him by way of explanation.
Ophelia chuffed softly but obediently stayed right at my side.
“I… Sorry, you just look familiar,” the man said when he found his tongue again.
“I get that a lot. Do you have any gas cans?” I asked him.
“Sure, aisle eight,” he said, pointing.
I walked down that way, my hand at my side brushing against Ophelia’s fur. Right away I found the cans. I bypassed the plastic ones and looked at the larger five-gallon metal cans.
“Too bad you can’t help me carry these,” I told her, then grabbed three of them, the fourth barely held on by a pinky finger.
I walked up front and the clerk saw me coming and put down the cell phone he’d been speaking into. He gave me a smile.
“Find everything you’re looking for?”
“Yeah. Just getting ready in case the hurricane hits and everyone panics and there’s no gas.”
“Yes, sounds like a good idea,” he said, ringing me up.
I was digging in my wallet when he asked, “You have a lot to fill and some gas stations are already running short as people panic buy. You should stop into Joe’s Towing up the street a few miles. He’s got his own fuel farm and sells at the rate he buys it.”
“Really?” I asked, curious, but wondering what his angle was. “Maybe I’ll check him out.”
“If you want,” he said. “You and your girls have a nice day.” He looked down at Ophelia, who remained silent.
Was it a relative of his he was drumming more business up for? The other thing that bugged me was although I did have a familiar face, and that was because of the kidnapping a couple years back more so than my writing… but he was starting to look familiar also. I got my change and thanked him. Ophelia stuck to my side like glue, so I wasn’t surprised when I opened the door, she barked at Opus till he got out of my seat. She jumped in and, as he tried to get in his spot in the middle, she used her shoulder to push him back.
He looked at his spot next to Owen and sighed and got up. Sarge, of course, wanted to lick my face off, so I gave him some loving too and took the sausage bites out of the side pocket of the van and started handing them out so I could get some room.
“Need the keys to open the back,” I told Tina.
“Owen has a new word. Truck a saurus.”
“That isn’t a word,” I said, grinning.
I unlocked the back, then loaded the fuel cans in. I could always crack the back window… was this even necessary? The wind died down for a moment and I realized that the rain had stopped and the sun was out, though shielded by wispy clouds.
“Not only is it a word,” Tina said getting in, “the radio lady said that they’ve got a new estimated track for the hurricane. I think we should bugout.”
She actually said those words. God I loved that woman, even if she made sense and was telling me bad news.
“Alright,” I told her, “let’s do that as soon as we fill the gas cans.”
“It’ll get us o
ut a day and a half ahead of when they say it’s going to hit,” Tina said, and her voice quavered a little bit.
“Is it going to be bad?” I asked, meaning the hurricane.
She nodded.
“If we take I-75, it heads to the western side of the state before going north. We might avoid some traffic if we take the roads less traveled, but I’m worried about running out of fuel,” I told her firing up the van.
“Let’s get it filled and I’ll use the Waze app and see where the traffic is worst.”
19
Rick
I never used the Waze app much. For as much as my life revolved around computers and software and the internet to conduct business, I didn’t overly complicate things. If the road looked busy, it was busy. Tina, on the other hand, started telling me where the gas stations were going to be, and that there was going to be a huge traffic snarl on 75 going north northwest. To make matters worse, the gas stations we were passing were full of cars lining up on the side of the road to even pull in.
“You know what?” I said aloud, “Look for a place called Joe’s Towing.”
“What’s there?” Tina asked.
“Hopefully gas. Guy at the hardware store said he’s got a fuel farm and usually sells it for what it costs him in situations like this.”
I passed another full up gas station when Owen erupted into tears in the back.
“Probably gassy,” Tina said.
If you’ve ever driven with a fussy toddler, you know how nerve shattering it is. Tina reached for her seatbelt when I saw the sign.
“There it is,” I said, putting on my left turn blinker and getting into the turning lane.
“He’s probably got a bubble that needs to get out,” Tina said. “I’ll take care of that while you figure out what we’re doing.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, wincing as Owen wailed louder.
Opus made a whining sound, and I could see in the rearview as he put his snout in front of the baby and I lost sight of him. Owen yelled, but not quite as loudly, then stopped and giggled.
Opus Adventure Page 11
