Home: A Stranded Novel (13 page)

Alex looked around and was intim
idated by all the men looking back at her. She was at a loss for words and was starting to get nervous when Dr. Mack pushed through the crowd and took her arm.

“You do know that you aren’t invi
ncible, don’t you? That was a crazy stunt, but now that you’re down here let me take you to your father.”

As Dr. Mack pulled her through the crowd she scanned faces and saw many gaunt and tired men. Many of them were smiling at her but there were also faces that were frowning and a few that even looked hostile. Dr. Mack was leading her towards the small office her
dad kept at the end of the stalls. Now that she was here, and so close to seeing her dad after all this time, her anxiety was increasing. She had been through so much on their journey home, and, in a lot of ways, felt that she was a different person. Having killed men had changed and hardened her, and she was almost afraid to face her father. They were steps away from the door leading into the office when Alex felt her other arm being grabbed and she was spun away from Dr. Mack, coming turned face to face with her old gym teacher, Mr. Beck. His face was bright red, eyes angry, and his grip was painful on her arm.

“Alex Andrews, what do you think you are doing?! This game you’re playing could get all of our families killed!”
he spat out bitterly.

Alex tried to pull her arm away from him but he just tightened his grip and gave her a small shake so she looked in to his face and tried to calm him down.

“Mr. Beck, I know this isn’t a game. I’m well aware of what is happening to our town and how careful we have to be. I’m not alone here and I have people watching the house. I’m here to see my father and give him the medicine I brought for him. I also have some things for the rest of you. If you will just let me go I will talk with you and everyone else after I’ve seen dad.”

Mr. Beck didn’t
seem to care what she said and bullied on.

“Who are you with? How many? Is it the army? I want to
talk to whoever is in charge!” he said loudly.

An intense anger filled Alex. Here she was
, risking her life, partly to try and help this man, and all he was doing was hurting her. After all the care she took to get in here undetected and this loudmouth was going to have the guards opening the door at any minute. She tried one more time to free her arm and when he yanked on it even harder she snapped. Gritting her teeth against the pain and her anger, she used her free hand to pull her gun from its holster and drew it, pointing it straight at his head. Mr. Beck’s eyes widened in shock but he didn’t let go of her arm.

“How dare you point a gun at me
? You little brat! You probably don’t even know how to use it!” he said with contempt.

Alex was so sick of being patronized by adults. She hadn’t felt like a kid in forever. The voice that came from her didn’t sound like a child’s. It was filled with cold hard steel.

“With all due respect, Mr. Beck, I was in California when the lights went out and I’ve had to kill more than ten men to get this far. I know how to use this gun. You need to let go of my arm, take a step back and shut your big mouth. If those guards come in here because of you, I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in your brain before I kill them!”

Mr. Beck’s mouth gaped open in shock but before he could respond, a new voice rang out in the dead silence that had filled the barn after Alex’s
warning.

“You have three seconds to take your hands off of my daughter before I tell her to go ahead and shoot.”

Alex kept her eyes on her target but her heart swelled with joy at the sound of her father’s voice. Mr. Beck must have seen something in Alex’s eyes that convinced him because he dropped her arm and stepped back. She continued to stare coldly at the man until he dropped his gaze. Only then did she holster her gun and look around at all the other men staring back at her.

“I promise I will answer as many questions as I can after I speak with my father. I know you all want to know what’s going on
, but I haven’t seen him since before this happened and…I really need a hug from my dad,” she pleaded with them all.

Most faces softened and nodded
, but she noticed that Mr. Beck looked furious and he had his eyes on the gun at her hip. Her hand automatically went to it and she challenged him with a hard look. There was another tense silence until two friends of her father’s stepped forward and took Mr. Beck’s arms. They were big men and Alex knew both of them worked with her dad on the volunteer fire fighting team. They nodded reassuringly at her and led her old gym teacher away. Only then did Alex turn and look at her dad. He was standing in the door of his office and he smiled when their eyes met. She took a step towards him and she could hear the love in his voice as he said her name before his eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the ground.

Alex froze on the spot and a soft keening sound came from her throat. Dr. Mack was at her father's side in seconds and he waved over another man. Alex watched as they picked her dad up and carried him into the office and out of sight. Her mind and heart were paralyzed into inaction and she didn’t know how long she stood there before Dr. Mack was shaking her arm.

“Alex, Alex
, he’s okay! He just fainted. He has a high fever and getting up just took the strength from him. Come in to the office.”

Alex numbly followed the doctor into the office and saw her
dad lying on a pallet made up of hay with an old horse blanket thrown over it. His face was pale white except for two flushed red spots on his cheeks from the fever. When his eyes fluttered open and focused on her, the paralysis that held her broke and she rushed forward to kneel beside him. Her voice was lost in the joy of just looking at him. His hand came up and pulled off her cap, dropping it to the floor, and then settled softly on her red curls. His eyes welled up with tears and he said her name on a breath before his strength left him again and his arm fell to his side.

Alex grabbed his hand and lifted it to her cheek. “Dad…
daddy, I’m sorry I took so long.”

A faint smile of amusement flickered across his face. “I knew you would make it home. I never doubted it once. My firecracker, did you run the whole way?”

She gasped out a sobbing laugh at the nickname he had given her as a child. “Not quite, but we did have to bike for a few days until we found transportation.”

His eyebrows raised in question
. “We? Who’s with you?”

Alex settled down beside him. “The whole gang made it
, dad, and a few others too.” She frowned at as she remembered the situation. “We’re going to save the town. We’ve been scouting all day and we’ll put a plan together to free everyone.”

Panic flared up in his eyes.
“Alex, no. You kids need to get away from here. This gang is ruthless. You kids need to get somewhere safe.”

Alex started to shake her head. “Dad…I…we aren’t kids anymore. We…I’ve had to do things to get here that…”
She hung her head in shame and couldn’t go on.

He gripped her hand tighter. “I hea
rd what you said to Beck. The men you killed, were they trying to hurt you?” When she only nodded, he continued, “Then I want you to put it aside. You did what you had to do to survive. All that matters now is that you’re safe. I need you to stay that way.”

Alex looked into his face and saw how tired and weak he looked so she changed the subject.

“I brought you medicine! I brought everything Dr. Mack will need to get you back on your feet.” She let go of his hand and took her pack off. Dr. Mack moved forward to join them and his eyes lit up when she started to pull out the supplies that she had brought. Alex handed him the blister packs of pills and he read the labels. The doctor nodded his head and started to pop the pills out right away. He handed some of them to Alex’s dad and she grabbed her water bottle so he could wash them down.

The doctor was looking through the bandages and suture kit and he smiled at her. “This is perfect
, Alex! Now I can reopen that wound and drain it before stitching it up. With the antibiotics and the antiseptic, I don’t see why he wouldn’t heal up. You took a big risk coming in here, but I think you probably saved your dad’s life.”

Alex leaned over and kissed her
dad’s cheek before turning back to the doctor. “There’s more. I brought a thermos of warm beef broth for dad and I also have some food for the rest of you. I know it’s not much but it was all that I could carry.”

She pulled a handful of power bars and sesame snaps from the bag and held them out to the doctor. When he saw what she was holding
, he nodded.

“Anything extra will help right now
, and these are full of protein.”

Alex dumped the pack upside down until there was a mound in front of the doctor. His eyes lit up and then
he frowned. “I need you to take all the packaging with you when you leave. If any of the guards find them they will know someone’s been here. In fact, you will have to take everything back with you. Start popping the pills out of these blister packs. They’re different colours so don’t worry about mixing them up.” He handed her the pills and went to the door to wave someone over. Two men came in and their eyes went straight to the pile of food on the floor. Dr. Mack scooped the bars up and put them on the desk before addressing the two men.

“We need to pass these out to the rest of the men but every wrapper needs to stay in this office so Alex can take them with her when she leaves. We can’t take a chance of the guards finding out she was here
, so one of you get the men to line up and then start unwrapping and handing them out.” The two men moved quickly to do as he said and he turned back to Alex. “Okay, maybe you should help them to speed it up. I’m going to work on your dad’s leg now so you can take the garbage with you,” he told her, as he ripped open the bandages, scalpel and suture kit.

Alex looked at her
dad’s face and saw a grimace of pain pass over it before her gaze dropped to the dirty rag tied around his leg. She swallowed past her dry throat and felt sweat form on her body. After cutting into Quinn’s body when he was shot, she knew what was coming and was thankful that she could let a real doctor handle it.

She got up and went to the desk and started to
unwrap the bars. Alex couldn’t help but flinch every time she heard her father moan or gasp in pain, but she kept her eyes on the desk. The man who was helping her kept stealing glances at her and finally asked her what was on his mind.

“How did you get all the way back here from California? There are a couple of people in here that had kids on that school trip. Is the power out everywhere? Did the government help you?”

Alex looked at the doorway where men were lined up and accepting the small amount of food with smiles. She hadn’t even considered the families of the students that had chosen to stay in the city when she and her friends had left. Clearing her throat, she gave him a quick rundown on what had happened, leaving out the more painful details.

“I don’t know what’s happening on the east coast but everything between here and California is affected. We walked and then biked out of the city area until we found a vehicle that would work. We got lucky and had some help
, but there wasn’t any government anywhere. Some of my friends found a sailboat on the coast and sailed up as far as Washington and walked most of the way through B.C. They didn’t see anything different than we did overland. Um…only ten of us students left and tried to make it home. The rest stayed in the city to wait for help. I’m sorry…I don’t know what happened to them.”

The man was quiet and seemed to be processing everything she said so she checked on her
dad and saw his eyes squeezed shut in pain. The doctor was putting stitches in an ugly gash in his leg so she went to his side and took his hand and tried to distract him.

“Dad, Emily and David and some others took a different route tha
n I did and they went through Merritt. They saw Peter and Susan and stayed with them for a night. They’re both fine and they plan on heading here after Susan has the baby.”

Her father smiled through gritted teeth and breathed out, “Thank God! Your mother will be so happy to hear that. She’s been going out of her mind with worry not knowing what was happening with you kids.”

“You’ve seen Mom? Is she okay?” Alex asked excitedly.

“Yes, we get to see our families once a week on Sundays. She’s holding up but this has been hard on her. The not knowing what happened to her kids has been worse than the gang taking over the town. Your mother’s a strong woman. She can handle anything as long as she knows her babies are safe.”

As the doctor continued to work on his leg, they talked about the other families and what he knew about each. She watched his eyes slowly flutter as the painkillers started to take effect, so she leaned over and kissed him on his forehead.

“I love you
, dad.”

A faint smile crossed his face and then his breathing deepened and he was
out. Alex took a minute to compose herself before turning to the doctor. He was finished stitching the wound and wrapping it with the clean bandages. He noticed she was watching him and saw that his patient had fallen asleep.

“You did
good, Alex. This will make all the difference. He should heal up just fine now.”

Alex was looking at the clean white bandage. “Will that give us away? Where will you tell the guards you got the bandages from?”
she asked worriedly.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m going to leave it for tonight
, but in the morning I’ll cover it with this rag. They'll never notice.”

Alex glanced at the door and saw that the lineup was gone. There was a mound of wrappers on the desk so she stood up and began to stuff them back into her pack. Dr. Mack cleaned up the medical supplies and brought them over to her.
Alex looked around the room for anything they might have missed and saw the thermos on the floor beside her sleeping father.

“Is there any way you can keep this?
If he hasn’t eaten because he hasn’t been able to work, he will need something on his stomach with the medication he will be taking, right?”

Dr. Mack nodded his head and took the thermos from her. “Yes, he will need it. I should be able to hide it without too much trouble. I also kept a couple of the power bars for him. He will need the protein in them to help get his strength back.” He looked at Alex with regret, “You have to get going
, Alex. You’ve been here for almost an hour already. I don’t want you to worry. I promise I will take care of your dad for you.”

Alex reached out and took his hand. “We are going to get you all out of here
, Dr. Mack! I don’t know what the plan is yet, but I think it will be either Saturday night or Sunday. Just hold on of few more days. Okay?”

“Oh
, Alex, please be careful! I know you kids want to help but trust me when I tell you your parents would rather be locked up and know you guys are safe and free. It’s such a huge risk going up against these animals!”

Alex’s eyes hardened and she looked him dead in the eyes. “Some risks are worth taking, no matter what the cost.”

“Just be careful. I can’t come and patch you up if one of you gets hurt.” With a squeeze of her hand, Alex let the doctor pull her to her feet. She looked down on her sleeping father once more before following the doctor out of the office.

Back in the main part of the barn, almost all of the men were sitting or lying on any available floor space. When Alex walked out
, all eyes turned to her. She was trying to find the words to reassure them when Dr. Mack addressed them.

“Listen up everyone! Alex needs to get going, she’s already been here too long. She has told me everything that she knows right now and we can talk about it after we get her out of here. The most important thing is that everyone keep
s their mouth shut about this little visit. Her group is trying to put a plan together to free us all and their biggest advantage right now is that they have surprise on their side.” He paused and drilled a look at Mr. Beck who looked away in disgust before continuing. “I need a couple of tall guys to help Alex get back up that rope, so clear a space.”

There was shuffling as the men moved away from the area where the rope hung down. Alex knew she didn’t need any help to climb the rope but smiled gratefully at her father’s two firefighting friends that came forward to give her a boost. As she walked through the men to the rope she was humbled by every man she passed as they reached out to touch or pat her. There were many
, “Be safe’s and thank you’s”, as she passed them. Taking one more look around she gave a sad smile and a little wave before stepping into one of the firefighters cupped hands and shimmying up the rope. When she got to the top and the pulley she swung a leg up and hooked it over the cross beam. Once again she was grateful for her gymnastic training. With her backpack empty and lighter she had an easier time balancing and was soon over the rail and back in the loft, after pulling the rope back up and rewrapping it around the beam. Pausing to look back, her eyes darted to the office door. She had done all she could for her father and she just prayed it was enough to get him through until they were free.

Going back out the
hayloft door was more difficult than coming in even without having to fight with the latch. She had to back out on to the elevator and brace herself on her knees so she could pull the two boards out with her. Being as quiet as she could, she still winced at every creak of the metal but she trusted Josh to alert her if any of the guards had left the house. Once the door was closed again, she slipped each two by four back in their brackets. There was nothing she could do about relatching the door but given how lax the guards seemed to be, she didn’t think they’d ever notice it. As she inched her way back down the elevator, she thought about how over confident the gang was by not patrolling or checking on their prisoners. A grim smile crossed her face as her feet hit the ground. They would use that confidence against the gang.

Hearing footsteps approaching
, she ducked down beside the elevator and waited in the deep shadows to make sure it was Josh. When he walked past her hiding spot she gave a soft whistle to alert him and stepped out beside him. They dashed towards the trees and soon where back at the tree that hid the radios and Alex’s rifle. When everything was packed back up and shouldered, she turned to Josh.