Seeking Safe Harbor: Suddenly Everything Changed (The Seeking Series) (28 page)

When the bikes got close, Zach caught up to the Ford SUV and drove alongside it, filling both lanes. When a biker tried to encroach on the narrow spaces between them or on the shoulders of the highway to get close shots at the drivers, one car or the other moved over to block the way. Those in the car were running low on ammo, so they didn’t shoot as long as the bikers were kept at bay behind them. They could only guess that the bikers were not firing away from behind for the same reason.

Driving alongside one another worked until they came across an abandoned car in the road. One of the vehicles had to drop back and then speed up again to keep ahead of the bikes.

Several bikers tried to get ahead by taking frontage roads, but they were soon blocked by stalled vehicles on the roadway, and they had to double back and return to the chase on the highway.

When the bikers finally realized they were never going to get alongside to get shots at the drivers on that stretch of the highway, they lost their patience and opened fire. When they did, Denise leaned out and shot at the tires of the leading bikes. She hit two, and they flipped, taking three more with them as they slid along pavement slickened by the rain.

The other bikers slowed for a minute but were urged on by a fallen biker who survived his crash. Most were right on the tails of the cars again. Several had inexplicably stopped, two behind the fallen bikes, and one stopped right after passing them.

Denise was out of ammo, so Ron and George leaned out and tried to shoot the tires out from under the closest bikes. They got rid of a few, but there were still almost twenty bikers after them. Ron soon ran out of ammunition, as well. George kept shooting for a while to keep the bikes at bay, but he, too, ran out of ammo. The only weapons they had left with bullets were Zach’s AK-47 and the single shot weapons his parents had.

Up ahead, they could see that the highway widened. Once they were completely out of ammo, there was going to be no way to stop the bikes from moving to the sides of the cars and shooting the drivers. The rain was coming down harder, but the determined bikers kept coming.

Zach handed his AK-47 back to Denise. “Keep them away from this side as long as you can,” he instructed her. They were left of the SUV, so the bikers would be able to get close to the driver’s side window when the road widened. “To save ammo, put it on single shot and don’t shoot until they come alongside.”

Mae had her window rolled down and her shotgun at the ready on the right side of the highway.

The bikes moved over to the sides of the highway as they approached the side section so they could get in position to surge ahead for shots at the drivers. Denise got a bead on the one in front on the left side, but it slowed down, slowing the others. They could see it pull over to let the others by. It stopped in the middle of the highway. Then, another slowed and stopped. One did pull up, and Denise shot the front tire out from under it.

On the other side, Mae shot the lead biker, and his bike turned into the SUV and bounced off. The caroming bike tripped up two more that were following it.

Looking back, they could see that the remaining bikes were slowing. Several more stopped. Six others kept after the cars at first, but when they realized they were alone, they, too, stopped.

The cars kept going for ten miles with the passengers looking back anxiously and the drivers keeping their eyes on the rear view mirrors. When it was clear they were alone, they slowed to a stop alongside one another in the middle of the highway.

“What was that all about?” George asked the senior Arthur, who was directly across from him. He spoke loudly over the sounds of the falling rain. “Why did they stop?”

“I’m not sure, but I have an idea,” the elder man replied.

“Me, too,” said Zach, “and I bet it’s the same one. He was looking at his dashboard gauges. “We’re about empty.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” his father agreed. “They’re out of gas. That is why there were fewer of them and why they were so blasted persistent. And patient enough to wait for us all night. They saw the extra gas and were bound and determined to get it.”

“They’d kill people just for gasoline?” Denise wanted to know, perplexed at the thought of how ruthless that was.

“Those kinds of people would kill for any reason,” her grandfather told her. “But in this case it was a really big reason. They need their bikes, and there may not be gas for hundreds of miles. That’s probably why those cars didn’t move from their roadblocks, too.”

“What now, Dad? I’ll be running out of fuel myself pretty soon.”

“The turnoff is about ten miles ahead,” he replied. “Keep going as long as you can. When you run out, all of you hop in the SUV. It will be a little crowded, but without those bikers and local thugs to hassle us, we’ll reach Gaviota in plenty of time.”

T
HE Mercedes ran out of fuel five minutes later, so the four occupants moved their backpacks and weapons to the SUV. Because of the rain, they moved more of the goods to the roof and they all squeezed into the SUV.

It was after dark when they found the turnoff. They decided the risk of being ambushed in that open area was less than having an accident, so the senior Arthur turned on his headlights. They only saw two people as they traveled along, and neither of them appeared threatening. After two wrong turns, they ended up on a road Glen was certain was the right one. It was ten p.m.

“It’s not much over an hour from here,” he said. “We should be there with time to spare.”

The rain was coming down in a torrent by the time they reached the final crossroads before they arrived at Highway 101. They turned right and headed west.

Fifteen minutes later, the rain had dwindled to a light drizzle. Looking ahead, the senior Arthur hit his brakes hard and the SUV skidded from side to side on the wet road, finally coming to a stop with its front tires at the edge of a steep precipice.

Pushing away the cans, blankets, and boxes that had crushed him against the side of the vehicle during the frenzied braking, Zach cried, “Dad, what is it?”

“The bridge.”

“What about the bridge?”

“It’s gone.”

The SUV’s lights shined out over a thirty-foot gully that was dry most of the year; but at that moment, it was full of rushing water. There was a concrete foundation, pilings, and portions of twisted metal girders half in and half out of the water, but no bridge.

Glen backed the SUV up a few feet and set the parking brake. He reached behind the front seat and pulled out a flashlight, then got out of the car. The others followed. Zach had the flashlight they were going to use to signal the cutter. They aimed the lights onto the water in both directions; it was easily ten to fifteen feet wide as far as they could see. They couldn’t tell how deep it was just by looking, but they knew it had to be deep enough to make it impassable. The current was too strong for them to try to ford it there.

“Is there another bridge?” Zach asked.

“There’s probably one somewhere, but I have no idea where, or how far,” his father replied. “Hop in and we’ll look.”

Having just come from the north, they knew there wasn’t one there, so they drove south. After driving half an hour with no luck, Zach suggested they stop.

“I saw some spots as we passed that looked more or less level,” he said. “Do you know of any place shallow enough for us to drive across?”

“I have no idea,” his dad replied. “I’ve never seen water in that gully before.”

The rain had stopped, and while the water was rushing at a slower rate, it was still far from calm. They got out of the vehicle and again shined the lights on the water as they walked along the edge. They came to a spot where the water widened to almost thirty feet.

Zach walked across and the water never got higher than his lower thighs. In the places he walked, the ground underneath was covered with rounded rocks. Spread out over thirty feet instead of ten or fifteen, the current was not too strong. It barely threatened to move him downstream, so it shouldn’t push the SUV at all. He looked at his father. “Do you think you can cross here?”

“Not knowing much about what the ground is like below the water, it’s a risk,” his father said. “But, it’s the only chance we have of getting there on time. And, what the heck, this is what a four-wheel-drive is for!” He got behind the wheel of the SUV and, while the others walked alongside, he drove into the water.

The tires gripped the rocks underneath and the vehicle moved along well at first. When it was half way across, one front tire hit sand. The front of the vehicle on that side dropped several inches, but it kept moving. When the back wheel hit the sand, the back also dropped. The vehicle kept moving, but slower. Then, both front tires hit a soft spot and the entire front dropped almost six inches.

The vehicle almost came to a standstill. Glen pushed down a little harder on the accelerator, and it began to move a little faster. The front tires found some gravel and the car moved ahead. They were now within ten feet of the other side.

Then, both the front and the back tires hit soft ground. The whole vehicle dropped six inches. Glen again pushed down on the accelerator, but the wheels spun and the car sunk deeper. It stopped moving.

“Get behind and push,” Glen called out.

While the others got behind and pushed, Glen handled the steering wheel and the accelerator. No matter how hard they pushed, or how hard Glen pushed down on the accelerator, the only direction the SUV moved was deeper into the muck.

It was hopelessly stuck.

“I
T’S TWO Mrs. Arthur,” Commander Beam told Stacey. “We have to go now.”

The captain had sent the commander with strict orders to leave at two a.m. – no matter what. The captain wasn’t there because he knew Stacey would try to persuade him to change his mind. The commander could not disobey an order.

They were one hundred yards off the beach at Gaviota. The rain had stopped hours before and the moon, along with a few stars, sneaked out from behind the clouds.

She looked sadly at the dark beach in the distance, feeling much further away than she knew it actually was.

“You promised the captain you wouldn’t jump in again,” he reminded her.

She smiled grimly, a thin look that had no mirth in it. She had promised, and she knew he had his orders.

The seaman at the controls turned the skiff toward the cutter and motored toward it.

“I’ve seen your husband and the others,” the commander said. “They are all very capable. If they’re alive, they will find a way to get to you on Catalina Island.”

“A minute longer without your loved ones is a minute too long,” she retorted.

“I agree,” he said, turning his head away.

She realized that he, and probably everyone else on board the cutter, had lost loved ones in the terrible war that had claimed billions of lives. She slumped against a rail and she, too, looked away.

When they were on board the cutter, Commander Beam said to Kotchel, “Sorry, but they were a no-show. We can head south and look for that container ship now.”

“We’ll have to delay that,” the captain replied. “We just got a call about another boat in distress north of here. We need to take a look before we head south.”

“Do you think it’s the same as before? Another false alarm? That container ship has put several pirate boats out there.”

“Yes, that could very well be what it is,” Kotchel conceded. “Whoever made the distress call didn’t give our contact on shore a description of their boat or its name. They just said they lost power and immediately went off the air. Sounds fishy, but we have to check it out.”

* * * * *

Zach and Ron went looking for another abandoned vehicle, and at three a.m., they returned to where the others were waiting on a bank of the gully near the SUV. By that time, the water had subsided considerably. But the SUV was so far down in the muck, there was no way they were going to get it out.

“We couldn’t find a four-wheel drive, but we did find a pickup,” Zach advised the group. “There’s a gravel road about a hundred feet from here that leads to the highway, so I can take a can of gas out to the pickup and bring it that close. The pickup bed is big enough that we can transfer all the supplies to it and still have room for all of us. It will take a little time, and we’re still an hour away from Gaviota. We should be there by seven or eight.”