“There is nothing here. They must have run to the right when we lost them.” He listens to a response and says, “I saw them running to the left before they disappeared. Maybe they tracked back, that’s possible.” He ends the call and motions to the Crocodile Dundee wannabe. “We’ve to turn back and check the bush to the left on this side of the river. Keep your eyes open. If we don’t find them, Ray will have our hide.”
We wait another ten minutes before we decide to leave our hiding place behind the tree. I awaken Rena and hold her close in my arms.
“We need to keep going, Sweetie.”
She looks at me and smiles. “I know. I dreamed of us playing at the beach. We were all laughing and Scott made a bonfire.”
I laughed. “That’s a good sign. You must be our lucky star. Come on, let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty
Elise: 24 March 2017, Early Evening, Gateway
Run. Run. Run. It isn’t over yet.
After two hours of running for our lives, the screaming terror lodged in every cell of my body has become a good friend. It pumps adrenaline into my bloodstream and coaxes from my muscles every iota of strength left. We run a hundred yards and then rest for a few minutes. Hundred yards … and rest. Again, and again.
The Tribe is like a well-oiled relay team. We pass on the baton to the next person. Lilly, Amadeus, Luke, Mikey, and me. Each of us squeezes another hundred yards out of the body. I realize we’ve always operated that way, sharing the load and helping. Only this time it was about sinking or swimming. It’s over or it’s over with us. We will succeed. We have to. Everything else is not an option.
When we reach State Highway 6 we stop. The road cuts through the landscape, its black asphalt gleaming like a river in the afternoon sun. I pluck Rena off Scott’s back. She smiles. After all the shooting, shouting, running, and hiding under scratchy bushes, she smiles. She’s such a trouper.
Scott flops to the ground and leans against a tree trunk, gasping for air as his head drops to his chest. I take a seat next to him and Rena is snuggling between us. She looks up to Scott and me with her large, blue eyes. I’m sure she’s hungry, the little peanut.
“Sweetie, can you hold on a little longer until we find something to eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
I choke seeing how she tries not to be a burden; so much so, she even denies being hungry. We must be a strange group for anyone who comes across us. Her summer dress is in tatters, so are Scott’s jeans. His upper body is bare, besides the blood, the bruises, and cuts, and I’m walking around in nothing but a hospital gown.
Reaching the highway isn’t the relief I’d hoped for. What if one of the oncoming cars is a Gateway person patrolling the road? Even though they were looking for us in a different direction the last time we spotted them, we can’t assume they are so clueless that they don’t expect us to reach the road.
“What are you thinking?”
“Two things. You need a rest …”
“No, I don’t. We can’t afford a long rest. We’re not safe yet.”
“You need a rest. If you weren’t such a brilliant hunter, they would have caught us on several occasions, I’m sure. Every part of me is in awe of you. Where did you learn all those tricks?”
He grins, pulling his face into the macabre grimace.
“If you’re out hunting, you learn how to avoid making noises and being seen or else you dinner is running away quicker than you can lift your gun.”
“Talking about dinner, what are our chances of finding a good Samaritan who stops and takes us to Port Somers?”
“Less than average to slim.”
“What do you want to do instead? Do you want us to walk all the way to Port Somers? We need to stop a car. Rena can’t walk much farther. Tired as we all are, it’ll take at least five hours to reach Port Somers.”
He shakes his head. “There has to be another way. We can’t risk being caught. Not after our mammoth effort.”
“Of course not. That’s not what I mean. I guess I’m only expressing my disappointment. I hoped to reach the road meant we would be safe and now I realize we’re not.”
He puts his arm around me and squeezes me to him. “I’m sorry love, let’s walk for a while until a car drives by with someone I know and trust.”
“Not Simon Barker. It wouldn’t surprise me if he patrolled the road for Raymond.”
“You think he’s in on it?”
“How can he not? He delivered us on a plate.”
We get up and for the next while, we walk just within the tree line, always keeping an eye out for traffic, cowering between the trees. My heart hammers every time I hear a car coming, but we never recognize anyone we know.
“I’m surprised how few people I know.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not just you.”
The sun, about to sink behind the tree line, throws long shadows onto the road. It’ll soon be dark. That might be a good thing safety-wise, but I don’t like it. We are exhausted, and Rena needs something to eat.
“Not just Rena, I would give everything for one of Ama’s peanut butter sandwiches. We are hungry too.” I’m failing everyone, including the Tribe.
“Can’t we build some kind of shelter and get a few hours of sleep before we continue?”
Scott is not going for my idea of a makeshift camp.
“We could. Let’s walk a little longer. I’m still hoping we come across a truck or car from a mate.”
I’m about to step out from among the trees when Scott pulls me
