earlier, running obnoxiously loud straight pipes. Some of the riders were carrying guns in plain sight: pistols in holsters at their sides or shotguns and rifles slung over their backs or strapped to their machines. As they passed by, Casey could see from the patches on the backs of their jackets and vests that they were indeed members of an organized club. She had heard of the name
“Bandidos,” Grant confirmed. “They’re the dominant club in New Orleans and most of the Gulf Coast region.”
“Are they like the Hells Angels or something?” Jessica asked.
“Yep. Definitely an outlaw motorcycle club. They usually don’t mess with regular people unless they get in the way of one of their criminal enterprises, but in this situation, it’s not worth taking a chance.”
“I’ll say. They sure look like they could take on anybody. Where do you think they’re going?” Casey asked.
“Who knows? Probably somewhere to hook up with other chapters in their organization; there are thousands of Bandidos here in the South, and other, rival clubs as well. Riding those old Harleys with their simple engines, they’ve got an advantage now over most people, including law enforcement agencies. There’s no telling what they’re up to.”
“I’m starting to think I’m going to like staying at your cabin in the woods,” Jessica said.
“I’m telling you, any place away from people is the place to be in a situation like this. That river is not on the way to anywhere, and most people with criminal intentions would have no reason to go somewhere they wouldn’t expect to find lots of people to take advantage of. We’ll be so much better off when we get off the highway. The cabin is at the end of a dirt road that is miles from even the nearest crossroads. We’ll be safe there—or I should say at least as safe as anywhere I could imagine, in this country, at least.”
The sound of the motorcycles had completely faded when they remounted their bikes and started moving again. Daylight was fading fast, but Grant insisted on getting past the drawbridge, even though he admitted it was unlikely that it would be opened. They had not seen any sign of ship or barge traffic on the vast lake all afternoon, and there was little reason to think that the authorities would deliberately open the bridge and cut off one of the main evacuation routes out of the city. But still, he didn’t want to take a chance.
“Once we’re past that drawbridge, we’re past the last potential major obstacle between us and the cabin. If I sleep at all tonight, it will be because I know that. But I probably won’t sleep, because there’s no way of knowing who else may come along in the night.”
“I think we should keep a rotating watch, the way Uncle Larry says you have to do on a boat at night when you’re out at sea.”
“That’s a good idea. Yes, let’s do that every night until we are safe at the cabin.”
The last few miles they covered in the twilight took them across the middle reaches of the Causeway, where land on either end was at its most distant. There were other people in this desolate stretch of roadway over the water—refugees from the city who had made their way this far and also stopped for the night to camp, and others who had been here since their cars stopped, still waiting for someone to come and help. Most of those in the latter category were too weak to move by now and had little chance of survival. Riding past them was heartbreaking to Casey, but she understood that she could do nothing for them. They barely had enough water between the three of them to last until the next morning, after exerting so much energy in the afternoon heat. Grant said they would cross some streams shortly after they reached the north shore the next day and that they would have the opportunity to refill their water bottles then.
When they finally pushed their bicycles across the steel grate of the drawbridge, full darkness had descended upon Lake Pontchartrain. Though they were now only eight miles from Mandeville, where there should have been a blanket of city lights covering the shoreline, there was nothing but blackness, making it impossible to see land to the north. Likewise, there was no glow from the direction of New Orleans to the south. Instead, in the absence of man-made light pollution to obscure the heavens, the stars that filled the sky overhead were more brilliant than Casey had ever seen them. Out here in the open with no trees or buildings to block her view, she could see even more of them than she had the night before on Grant’s front porch. It was simply amazing to her how much of the natural world she had missed before while living in the artificial insulation of modern technology. She couldn’t help but marvel at this newfound natural beauty, but she would trade it back for her old familiar world in a heartbeat, and she knew Jessica would too. Grant, she wasn’t so sure about. He seemed almost in his element in this new reality, and she was more impressed with him all the time as she saw how he seemed to have an answer for every problem that arose. She attributed it to his unusual upbringing with his adventurous parents, and of course, to his own chosen field of study that promised a continuing life out of the ordinary, mundane working world that most people had to fit into. He reminded her a lot of her Uncle Larry, who certainly had carved out a lifestyle for himself that most people wouldn’t have dared to dream of. People like Larry and Grant may have been outsiders in some ways in the “normal” world, but she was beginning to see that in this new reality they might have a distinct advantage over those who had chosen more conventional lives. She knew Uncle Larry could take care of himself in just about any kind of crisis. She just hoped he could do the same for her dad as well.
The three of them huddled together behind a stranded tractor-trailer rig where they would be out of sight of anyone passing by in the night, and took turns keeping watch while trying to get some sleep during their off-watch hours. Jessica slept better than Casey or Grant did. She still had not caught up from being awake almost the entire night of the pulse event and she was exhausted from her long day that began with walking to Joey’s house and later being attacked by the would-be bicycle thieves. Casey finally got a couple of hours of deep sleep before dawn, but it seemed to her she had just closed her eyes when Grant gently shook her shoulder and said it was time to get up and get ready to move out. He wanted to get in a full day of travel, and hoped they would be able to cover enough ground so that they would only have to stop one more night and then could reach the cabin the following day.
“You would probably already be there if not for us holding you back,” Casey said as they each drank coffee and ate a bowl of oatmeal with chunks of almonds and dried fruit in it to give it more flavor and substance.
“I might be, but that’s not even a consideration. You’re not holding me back from anything. We’ll get there when we get there.”
“I don’t think I can even sit on that bicycle seat today,” Jessica said. “I can’t believe how sore I am.”
“The pain goes away after the first mile or so when you get warmed up. You’ll be fine. We’ll keep on at about the same easy pace as yesterday and before you know it, we’ll be off this bridge, through all the towns on the North Shore, and out in the countryside.”
Grant was right about the soreness going away. Casey couldn’t believe how much it hurt to sit down on the narrow bicycle saddle when she first got back on it, and her legs felt so stiff she didn’t think she could turn the cranks. But ten minutes into the ride she was starting to feel better, and the cool morning air made it a lot easier to breathe than it had been in the heat and humidity of the previous afternoon. The ride might have been pleasant if not for another gruesome reminder of the new reality they passed before they got off the bridge. This time the victim was a young man who didn’t look unhealthy or out of shape at all, nor had he died in a car accident. His body was lying between an undamaged pickup truck and the concrete retaining wall. A stain of dried blood darkened the bridge deck beneath his head, and when Grant looked more closely he saw what could only have been a bullet hole. The back window of the truck was covered in a large Mossy Oak camouflage clothing logo, and the bed was empty except for some nylon ratchet straps that looked like they had been cut with a knife.
“He had something in the back of this truck somebody wanted,” Grant said. “It looks like he was into hunting; it was probably some kind of four-wheeler ATV with a pull-start engine they were able to get running.”
“Somebody killed him for it?” Casey asked in disbelief.
“It sure looks that way.”
“Those motorcycle guys?” Jessica asked.
“No. They wouldn’t have wanted or needed a four-wheeler, and this guy’s been dead longer than that. It probably happened the first day, when everyone first realized they were going to have to walk if they ever wanted to get back to land. My guess is that it was someone with about the same mentality as those punks that tried to
