Bug Out! Part 5: RV Flight from Terror (19 page)

“What?” Jane asked.

“Just a sec, Jerry,” Frank said. He brought the phone down from his ear. “Enemy troops…on the ground over there. The choppers are heading for them.”

“Oh, no,” Jane said. “So they are up here.”

Frank put the phone back to his ear.

“You think they’re close enough to get to the road before we pass by?” he asked.

“Nah, they’re on foot,” Jerry said. “Stupid. What are they doing out in the open like that?”

“Good question.”

Just then one of the choppers exploded. The others banked away from it.

“Son of a bitch,” Jerry said. “They fired something at the choppers from the ground. RPG or something.”

“The choppers are turning back around,” Frank said, as he looked at Jane. Her eyes were wide with terror, but she focused on her driving, her jaw set in grim determination.

“I’m getting off the phone, Frank,” Jerry said. “Talk to you later.”

Frank put his phone back in his pocket, got up, and went into the bedroom. He came back out with his binoculars, and sat back down. He buckled in and put them to his eyes.

Three of the choppers fired missiles. They hit the ground, exploding in the midst of the troops, causing them to scatter.

“Yeah!” shouted Frank. “Look at them run!”

Another of the choppers exploded. Frank could see a person down on one knee, holding some kind of a weapon, pointed up at the sky. One of the remaining choppers got ready to fire, but then it stopped, and all of them banked off and headed for the hills.

“They’re running away,” Jane said.

“I think I know why those choppers are running,
” Frank said. “Listen.”

There was the approaching roar of a jet fighter.

“Yes, I hear it,” Jane said.

Suddenly a curtain of flames descended onto the ground, covering the force of Islamic fighters. Frank took the binoculars away from his eyes, a grim look on his face.

“Bad?” Jane asked.

“I wish I hadn’t seen that,” Frank said. “Not a good way to go.”

“I thought they outlawed napalm.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they did it,” Frank said.

“I know, me too,” Jane said. “But we’re still human beings. I don’t like to see stuff like that.”

“Well, just remember our friend’s heads on spikes back at Hilda’s park to keep your perspective. They would have loved to do the same thing to us.”

“I know,” Jane said. Frank’s phone rang.

“Hey, Jerry,” Frank said.

“That was something else. Looked like almost a thousand men.”

“Yeah, I was looking at them through the binos when it hit. Not a pretty sight.”

“I know, Jasmine was watching when it happened. She’s a little shook up.”

“Of course she is. Me too, but I’m glad they got wiped out.”

“Yes, Frank, so am I, believe me. I was wondering….do you think we ought to go all the way to Leadville tonight? Maybe it’s not safe to spend the night along I-70.”

“That thought is starting to creep into my mind too. Let’s chat about it when we get to Rifle.”

“Sounds good. Talk to you later.”

Frank put his phone back in his pocket.

“What’s up?” Jane asked.

“Jerry’s thinking that maybe we ought to try to make it all the way to Leadville tonight, instead of hanging out right next to I-70.”

“Because there were so many enemy fighters this far into Colorado?”

“Exactly. I think he might have something there. We’ll talk about it when we stop for gas in Rifle.”

“Jeb made a comment about Route 24 being tough at night,” Jane said. “Wonder how tough?”

“I’ll see if I can get a decent look at it on my phone…although it’s getting pretty sparse out here now. Might not have service at the moment.”

“Maybe the place we gas up will have a coffee shop nearby. We could take an iPad in there.”

“Or we could just ask Jeb about it,” Frank said. “He’s been on that road…shoot, no data service. Surprised I was able to talk to Jerry.”

The two were quiet for a while. The midday sun started to heat up the coach, and Jane flipped on the air conditioner. Lucy jumped back up on Franks lap and settled in for a nap. Frank dozed off too. He was out for over an hour.

“Frank!” Jane shouted at him.

He shook his head, eyes opening. Lucy jumped off his lap.

“What? Where are we?”

“We’re about five miles away from Rifle,” Jane said. “Thought I’d better wake you.”

“Oh, really?” Frank said. “That was fast.”

“You and the girl were asleep for a while. That’s good, in case we end up going all the way to Leadville today.”

Frank pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at it.

“Wow, it’s not quite noon yet. Not bad. I got service now, too.”

“Good, get on the map application and see how many miles to Eagle, and how many more to Leadville.”

Frank focused on his phone for a few minutes, moving his fingers over the screen.

“Looks like about 130 miles from Rifle to Eagle, and another 40 miles or so to Leadville, but we have a lot of grade on the way to Eagle, and a lot of switchbacks between Eagle and Leadville.”

“How much time? That’s not so many miles.”

“Well, that’s really hard to say,” Frank said. “We might be down around 40 miles an hour or less up some of the grades, and they go for miles. But then there are parts that we can go 65-70 with no problem. That last 40 miles is going to be 25-35, I suspect. Jeb would know.”

“We should ask him.”

“Here comes the off ramp,” Frank said.

The stream of coaches made the turn off of I-70 and crept along the main street of Rifle like a giant snake. There was a large truck stop a block down, with only one semi-truck gassing up. The rest of the islands were open. They got filled with RVs several deep when the group arrived. Jane pulled in behind Jeb’s rig. Frank unbuckled and got up.

“How is the gas, anyway?” Frank asked.

“We’re still above half a tank,” Jane replied. “I’ll take the girl for a walk while you handle it.”

“Sounds good.” Frank opened the door and waited for the steps to come out, then stepped out. He went around to the gas pumps and used his credit card to get started. The hose just barely reached. It was a good fast pump. Frank watched the dollars roll up and shook his head.

“Highway robbery,” Jeb said, walking over. “The diesel is even worse than the gasoline.”

“How’d you like that napalm run?”

“If I wasn’t driving I would have drunk a toast,” Jeb said.

“I was watching through my binoculars when it hit. Not a pretty sight.”

“They asked for it, and they’ll get more.”

Charlie and Jerry walked over.

“You guys got the gas flowing?” Jeb asked. Both men nodded.

“Jeb, how bad is Route 24? Is it drivable at night?” asked Jerry.

“It’s dark and a little narrow, and some of the switchbacks are a little tight. There’s also a lot of grade….up then down. Mostly up, though. Why?”

“After seeing those enemy troops so far into Colorado, I’m wondering if we really want to camp out right along I-70.”

“Well, it wasn’t me that wanted to stop in Eagle,” Jeb said. “I’m good with going all the way. It may be dark before we get there, though. Something to think about.”

Frank looked over and saw Jane coming back towards the coach with Lucy.

“She done already?”

“Sure is,” Jane said. “What’re we going to do?”

“We were just talking about it.”

The rest of the core group walked over…..the Sheriff, Kurt and Mary, Jackson, and Earl.

“Got a little meeting going on?” the Sheriff said.

“Well, kinda,” Jerry said. “We were talking about how far we should go tonight. Should we stop in Eagle, or should we go all the way to Leadville.”

“I was thinking about that, too,” Kurt said. “Eagle is right on I-70. I didn’t like to see the enemy so far into Colorado and so close to the main road like that.”

“Seriously,” Jerry said. “That’s why I’m bringing it up…but I don’t want us to bite off more than we can chew. Who knows how bad Route 24 would be to drive at night?”

“You’ve heard what I said,” Jeb replied. “It sucks, but it’s doable. I’d be more worried about finding a good place to stop then I would getting over the road. It’ll probably be dark before we get into Leadville.”

“You sure about that?” asked Earl. “It’s just a little after noon now. We aren’t talking that many miles. Under two hundred.”

“That’s correct,” Kurt said, “but remember that we are about to hit some big grades. We won’t be flying along at 70 when we hit those. In some stretches we’ll be lucky to hold 35.”

“I’m not so sure it will be dark.” Frank said. “If we divide 200 miles by a reasonable average….say 50 miles per hour, we are only talking about 4 hours. Assuming we get back on the road at about 12:30, we would be there by 4:30 or so.”

“That average speed is way too high,” Kurt said. “Too high even if we don’t include Route 24. The grade comes up really fast after this, and I know there are parts of Route 24 that are 35 miles per hour during mid-day. We are going to get a lot of shadow up there, too.”

“Kurt’s right,” the Sheriff said. “That’s why I wanted to gas up here. We’re going to be cranking along in low gear for a long time. We’re going to burn gas like crazy.”

“OK, I just plugged in 35 miles per hour, and I see your point,” Frank said. “It’s almost six hours, and when you take into account the shadow effect up in the mountains, we’re running into darkness.”

“So what do we want to do?” the Sheriff asked.

“Let’s do this,” Charlie said. “Let’s pull off at Eagle and re-assess. Maybe we’ll make better time than we are expecting, or maybe it’ll be worse. We can make a good decision then.”

“I agree,” Jerry said.

The rest of the people nodded in approval.

Everybody went back to their rigs and finished fueling up. Soon they were driving back to I-70, in about the same order they were before. Frank was behind the wheel now. After they were on I-70 and rolling along well, Jane went into the back looking for something to eat. She came back with apples and clif bars for both of them.

“The road is a little more crowded here,” Frank said. “I see traffic on the other side of the road, too.”

“Nice view of the river over on this side.”

Frank sat up higher in his seat and looked out the passenger side window.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Looks bigger than I expected up here.”

“Haven’t seen any boats on it, though. Maybe it’s not the recreational haven that it is down south.”

“Or maybe everybody has more important things to do than play on the river these days,” Frank said.

Jane just nodded.

“I feel the grade already,” Frank said. “It’s going to get noisy pretty soon.”

“I suspect,” she replied.

“If you still have data service, it might be a good idea to check Leadville for RV Parks.”

“I’ll give it a try.” Jane pulled her phone out of her purse and looked at it.

“I’ve got 4G at least,” she said. She focused on her phone for a few minutes.

“See anything interesting?” Frank asked.

“There are a lot of RV Parks, that’s for sure. There are some nice lakes nearby, so this area is quite a recreation spot.”

“I wonder if Hilda or Kurt know which ones are good.”

“They probably know people who own parks there,” Jane said. “I’d be surprised if they don’t.”

“Could be, but this is a ways from them. See if you can get a closer look at Route 24.”

“Already on that. It doesn’t look that tight to me, Frank.”

“Good,” he replied.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“The elevation. Geez. Did you know that Leadville is over 10,000 feet? Hell, most of Route 24 is up around that, although the beginning is in the 8000-9000 range. It that going to have an impact on the engine?”

“Yeah, we’ll lose some power,” Frank said. “No doubt about that.”

The RV’s V-10 engine roared as it downshifted. Frank gave it more gas to keep the speed up.

“Grade starting?” Jane asked.

“Oh, it’s been going up for a while now, but this V-10 has a lot of torque. We just hit the point where it’s got to downshift, though.”

“Are we going to have trouble keeping up with the diesels?”

“We would if they wanted to run away from us, but they’ll stay close. About half of our folks are in gas rigs.”

“It’s leveling out for a while,” Frank said. “I can feel it.” The engine up shifted and the rpm went down.

“Good,” Jane said. “Here comes the city of Silt. We’re making pretty good time.”

“What’s the elevation there?”

“It’s only in the 5400 foot range. I think we’ll have quite a bit of run room at higher speeds,” Jane said. “It doesn’t start going over 6000 feet until we get past Glenwood Springs, and that’s a ways away. Glad we’re going to reassess in Eagle.”

“How far is Glenwood Springs?”

“Less than an hour, from what I can tell.”

They rode along silently for a while, and were able to keep their speed up most of the time. As they approached Glenwood Springs, the V-10 started to labor, and the transmission downshifted again. They slowed to below 50 after a short period of time, but were able to hold that speed for a while. The cockpit was noisy. Lucy begged Jane to come on her lap.

“C’mon girl,” Jane said. “We’re just grinding away now, aren’t we?”

“Yep, been out of overdrive for a while now. I just saw a sign for Glenwood Springs. You were right….it was just under an hour.”

They rode past the town. It was set in a deep valley with steep mountains on either side.

“What a pretty town,” Jane said. “Just gorgeous.”

“Sure is,” Frank replied. “I’d like to come back through here and stay a while if things calm down.”

“Me too.”

“More traffic,” Frank said. “Looks like locals to me.”

“Yep.”

The V-10 started to labor again as they climbed out of the valley.

“Here it starts,” Frank said. Soon they were only going about 40, and the engine had downshifted a couple of times.

“How’s it doing?” Jane had to almost shout to be heard.

“The old V-10s are made for this,” Frank shouted, “but I’m having a hard time holding it at 40. If it gets steeper we’ll be down around 35.”