Crush: Impact Book 4: (A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Series) Read online

  “Thanks, but I already have someone.” She leaned back, hoping he saw Asher across the front seat. She gave a curt wave as thanks, then rolled up her window.

  “Who was this Indian chief of whom he speaks?” Shawn Runs Hard asked sarcastically.

  “I think he meant you, Dad,” Logan replied seriously.

  She and Asher cracked up at the fourteen-year-old Captain Obvious.

  They drove for another hour before they saw the big green sign showing the way to Denver International Airport. She guided the truck onto the flyover ramp heading east, pleased to see almost everyone else in the line continuing toward Denver. Once they were clear, she had the truck back to eighty miles per hour. “We’ll be there in less than sixty minutes,” she announced after seeing the mileage remaining on another sign.

  “I hope you’re right,” Shawn said in an ominous tone.

  Besides taller mountains to the west, the landscape leading toward the interchange wasn’t that different than any other part of their drive from Cheyenne. There was lots of grass, and a few more rolling hills around the highway, but not much for towns or cities, at least on the north side of the road. Then, as the truck hit a high spot in the route, the sprawling metropolis of Denver was laid out before her to the south of them. It was as if the town’s streets, homes, and buildings wanted nothing to do with the land north of the east-west highway.

  “Oh no,” Asher said, pointing to another sign. “Somehow we got on a toll road.”

  She chuckled. “They can bill me. I’m not stopping again for anything until we reach the airport.”

  “It’s all automated,” Shawn said from the backseat. “They’ll take a picture of your license plate, then send a bill to your address.”

  “Then we’re fine,” she reasoned. “I’m not even sure the license plates are still on this thing and, even if they were, the bill would go to 123 Yellowstone Park, not my apartment.”

  She glanced over to Asher, wondering if he was going to let it bother him. Grace had stopped worrying about such things back when the bison rammed her. She would gladly pay for the entire truck if it meant her life was no longer in danger and the world was back to normal.

  A few miles later, they crossed a small stream with lots of green shrubs and grass hugging the shore. A bike path ran alongside the water and it appeared to go south, toward the dense part of the sprawl. No one was down there at the edge of the city. Why would they be? Everyone was heading downtown to get rich, apparently.

  Another quarter of a mile more, and they saw a few houses near an off-ramp and bridge over the highway. A half-dozen cars were parked on the roadway’s shoulder, but they were all facing the other direction. She’d sped by before figuring out what they were doing.

  She drove a few more miles, thinking they were in the clear for getting somewhere, but the illusion burst when they approached the off-ramp to the airport.

  “Oh. Crap.” She slowed significantly, easing into a procession of cars already on the ramp.

  “What now?” Logan asked with annoyance.

  A line of cars and people were on the intersecting highway. There were no trees, and only a few rolling hills, making it easy to see the scope of the situation. If the other highway was crammed with work trucks heading south, this one was filled with regular people, many on foot, heading east toward the airport. As best she could tell from so far away, none of the cars were moving. To make matters worse, the fleeing citizens had gone onto the opposite lanes of traffic, stopping up both directions of the highway.

  “We’ve got a problem,” she deadpanned.

  Alton, IL

  Ezra was glad to be moving again, but once he and Butch were floating free on the river, he immediately went back to worrying about the pirates. The recent heavy rain could have blown the blockage in St. Louis wide open. He’d soon convinced himself every speck of white far down the river was the big towboat coming to get them.

  “We have to go south a couple of miles, as fast as possible, then we’ll catch the Missouri River.” It burned him to retrace his steps. Some of the pain could have been erased if he’d floated with the current rather than use fuel, but the threat of the pirates made him push the motor to get it over with.

  “I think I’m getting the hang of this boating thing,” Butch remarked.

  “You can drive later, if you want. We’re going to be on the water for a week or more, I’m betting. I can’t do it all on my own.” To get to Grace, he would willingly travel alone if there was no other choice, but he was glad to have the help.

  Butch held up his hands in a “No thanks” gesture. “I’m happy to be a crewman on this tub, though I have to wonder why the passenger seat is to your left. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

  Ezra became reflective. Susan had asked that same question not too long ago. He’d had no idea at the time, so he went and looked it up for her. “There’s a few schools of thought on the topic.” He settled into his seat. “First, the propeller turns clockwise, and the torque forces the left-hand side of the hull down. By placing the driver on the right side, it offsets the tilt.”

  “So, I’m wrecking the balance,” Butch remarked, “by putting more weight on this side.”

  “A little, but we have pontoons instead of a regular hull. I doubt either of us has any effect on the tilt of the boat.”

  “So, it’s ceremonial,” the big man added.

  “Yeah, but the second reason is because boat drivers have to scan this side to ensure it’s clear. We always pass oncoming boats by veering to the right, so it helps to be seated on this side.”

  The deck had been crushed when the boat flipped on the first night, so the low railing was gone, as were the sun visor and windshield. There was nothing blocking Ezra’s view toward their front, which turned out to be a blessing. He needed the open floorplan due to all the debris still on the water.

  “Well, I guess your reasons make sense.”

  Ezra wasn’t done. “There’s also some research which says ancient mariners used to put their steering oars on the right side, since most people were right-handed. Over the years, that led to the tradition of docking on the left and passing on the right, since they wanted to keep their steering apparatus clear of everything else on the water.”

  Butch tugged at his cowboy hat. “Now you’re just showing off, boss.”

  “Yeah, I researched this for someone else. I’m glad I got to use it again.”

  His friend looked over and Ezra sensed the man gauging whether he should ask who he meant. He seemed to conclude it wasn’t proper to press the issue, so he went back to watching the water.

  Susan, we’re back on your boat. Let me know if there’s trouble up ahead.

  He knew there was.

  Denver, CO

  Petteri had spent the last twenty-four hours watching his men whittle away the big chunk of rock. The giant asteroid fragment sat between two buildings in the Lodo neighborhood of Denver. While the excavation took place, the TKM staff moved from the exposed tents and into one of the adjacent office towers. The ten-story structure gave him a perfect view of the entire operation, but it also got him out of the way of stray bullets, which had become a problem.

  “Howard, what have you got for me today?” The “accident” with the PWI diggers had taken place two days ago. They’d spent the next day meticulously cleaning up all the dead bodies, careful to burn each one in a mobile trash incinerator. He explained to his workers it was necessary to burn them to avoid health issues. They seemed to appreciate his concern.

  “Sir, we’ve estimated it will take almost five hundred dump-truck loads to get this entire structure shipped to a secure TKM facility. So far, we’ve only been able to get thirty truckloads of ore out of the city, and the pace is slowing. Part of it is a result of congestion on the roads in and out of the downtown area, but we’ve also picked up a few…” He hesitated.

  “What?” Petteri said with impatience.

  “Some of the people are sneaki
ng into our slag piles and stealing whatever they can carry. When I looked into how they’re getting close to our operation, I found out some men on the police cordon have abandoned their positions.”

  “Dammit,” he said, careful not to show any out-of-control emotions, as he’d done when he learned about the Crow Nation’s attempt to legally outmaneuver him. “If more police abandon their lines, we’re going to be at the mercy of the average schmoes out there. Pay the local law whatever you have to. That protective buffer must be maintained.”

  “Very good, sir. I’ll dispatch a facilitator immediately.”

  “Send whatever you need, but I want you to work on getting more of our men here as soon as you can. If all the police abandon us, we’re going to have to defend this street ourselves. You’re going to have to put those Army skills back into use.”

  Howard’s face drained in a most satisfying way. It meant the man knew he’d been put on the hot seat. “I understand.”

  Petteri had been studying the situation around America and kept a solid grasp of what he needed to do to protect his investment. He’d gone to astronomical lengths to hide the true contents of his asteroid from everyone while it was in space, but piles of gold, platinum, and other rarer minerals were never going to stay hidden once it all fell to Earth. Having Howard keep the police in line and bring in more muscle would serve for the rock down on the street, but he needed a more powerful ally to address similar problems at all the other dig sites.

  “Before you go, can you tell Dorothy I need to see her?” He’d been anxious to get the young lady in front of Mr. Stricker, and he’d soon have the opportunity. The secretary of homeland security was coming from Washington so they could speak face-to-face, without the need to code everything as they had to do over the phone.

  “I’m on it,” Howard said while scurrying out of the room.

  He went back to looking out the top-floor window. The dig site below was a hub of activity filled with TKM men and equipment. Quietly, he spoke to himself. “Thirty loads down, four-hundred and seventy to go.”

  Chapter 3

  Denver International Airport, CO

  Grace had learned a great deal about refugees and fleeing from calamity over the past several days, so she knew to be careful. She parked the truck on the long exit ramp, far from the line of stopped vehicles on the intersecting road heading under the overpass. After discussing their next move while still inside the truck, they decided the walkers didn’t seem desperate or violent, so it was safe to go out and ask them a few questions.

  “I can’t even see the airport from here,” Logan remarked, when they were close to the people. “Do they know where they’re going?”

  “Yes. It’s over those hills, a couple of miles that way.” Shawn Runs Hard pointed east, toward a rise in the highway. Other than the ant-like procession of cars and people, the land was barren and empty, with tufts of grass dotting the countryside, but not much else. In the other direction, the line came from on top of another hill, making it appear the refugees were walking from one side of a bowl to the other.

  Grace and Asher had their uniforms, complete with straw hats and the borrowed police utility belts. She suggested they walk together, with Shawn and Logan bringing up the rear. It seemed legitimate to use her authority to get someone to talk to them. “Excuse me! Where is everyone going?”

  A pair of older women, both Hispanic, immediately veered out of the line to get closer to her. They were dressed in casual slacks and loose-fitting blouses, with canvas backpacks over their shoulders. One of them waved for her partner to stop in front of Grace. “Don’t you know, miss? A bomb went off in downtown Denver. We saw the missile fall from the sky. The mayor told everyone to evacuate. We are going back to Mexico until all this blows over.”

  “Mexico?” she replied before glancing toward the airport. “Do you have a flight already lined up?”

  “No,” the woman admitted, “but we’ve got to try.” She looked at Grace and her friends with a discerning eye. “Do you, by chance, have any water? We did not come prepared for a long walk.”

  “I think we do,” she replied, before correcting herself. “Well…” She knew they had a few bottles of water in the cargo area. Shawn’s brother Calvin had tossed them in when they went to look for the asteroid fragment on Crow lands. There were tens of thousands of people in the line. It wouldn’t help anyone to promise water to only two of them. “What I meant is, we did have some.”

  Grace excused herself and went back to Logan. “Will you run back to the truck and get one of the bottles of water? I want you to hide it, though, when you return. We’re going to sneak it to these two, but we don’t want to start a riot.”

  Logan nodded in understanding and headed back.

  “My associate will check if we have any left. We’ve been on the road a long time ourselves.” She craned her neck to see toward Denver. “What else can you tell us about the city? Has this line been here for a while?” Grace assumed it would be helpful to Shawn and Logan to know whether the line of people in front of them represented the beginning of the line, or the end.

  The woman brushed away some of her long gray hair, then shifted the bag on her back. “Sí, we have been walking since last night. No one wanted to stop during the darkness, or they’d fall behind. I’m told the airport isn’t far from here, and we are very slow, so I would say we are close to the back.”

  Grace checked again. The line seemed as thick coming over the hill a couple of miles away as it did in front of her. She didn’t want to contradict the woman, but there didn’t seem to be an end. It meant the airport wasn’t going to be able to hold everyone.

  The tired woman spoke in a hushed voice. “The good news is Petteri Tikkanen is back in Denver, cleaning it up for us. He’s the richest man in the world. We passed one of his trucks earlier this morning. It was parked on the side of the road, but the relief supplies had already been emptied out. At least he’s trying to help us, unlike the officials in the city.” She finished by spitting on the ground, dangerously close to her boot.

  The lady grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “I understand,” Grace commiserated. “I haven’t seen many city leaders taking care of those affected by this disaster.” From Yellowstone to Billings, it was people like her and Asher taking charge, rather than the leaders who were paid to manage their jurisdictions. Only Shawn Runs Hard seemed to have a plan, though he was constantly thwarted by others.

  As they spoke, a line of forest-colored Humvees came out from underneath the overpass. The convoy squeezed by on the shoulder, going against traffic since the refugee wave hogged all six lanes of the highway.

  “What are they doing?” she asked the ladies.

  “Army trucks have been going back toward the city all night. They go everywhere but on the highway, since it’s blocked by stopped cars.”

  The woman’s partner, who up until that point had said nothing, added, “And they don’t stop to give two old ladies any assistance.”

  The military trucks drove through the grass as they cleared out from under the bridge, then continued behind Grace. At first, she thought they were aiming toward her NPS truck, but they shot across the off ramp and went out into an empty field of grass.

  Logan came running back as soon as they passed. He gave Grace a knowing smile, then transferred a bottle of water to the lady they’d been speaking with.

  “Gracias,” she replied. “We must move now.”

  Grace understood. No matter how large the line, each second they delayed was one more seat filled on their airplane back to Mexico. She was convinced, however, there weren’t going to be enough planes. No airport could hold as many passengers as were on the highway before her.

  She turned back to Shawn. “Sir, I don’t think you’re going to make it to Washington, DC. There are too many people fleeing the city already. You and Logan would be in danger if you tried to join them and find a flight.”

  As L
ogan returned to his father’s side, the older man studied the situation sprawled out before them. What calculations was the tribe elder making? How far would he go to fight the legal battle on behalf of his tribe?

  A helicopter swooped in low from somewhere to the north. The whomp-whomp sound caught her attention and drew eyes toward the featureless tract of land where it prepared to touch down. The Humvees were almost at the same spot, hinting at a military rendezvous. Grace pointed toward the field.

  “Maybe the Army can give us some answers,” she said dryly.

  St. Charles, MO

  Ezra and Butch had wasted a day waiting in Alton, so when they went back down the river to locate the entrance to the Missouri River, he expected a bit of a challenge. Instead, though the water was still high, it wasn’t flooding. It made the junction extremely obvious.

  “How’d you miss this?” Butch laughed.

  “You were there, too. How’d you miss it?” He found it funny, but couldn’t deny the reality of their error. Between the sideways rain and fog, high waters, and endless flows of trash, they’d completely missed the second waterway.

  “This ain’t good,” he said while halting his progress in the strong eddies where the two rivers came together. The Missouri River was as clogged with trash and debris as the oxbow bend where they’d almost died. The pieces moved fast, as if everything was on a conveyor belt coming directly from the trash dump.

  “Should we wait a little longer?” Butch asked.

  “No,” he said reflexively. “We have to make up for lost time, not waste more of it.” He glanced over to Butch, not sure if he’d snapped at him. “I hear what you’re saying, but my boat can handle this. It’s not much different than what we saw in the oxbow bend.”

  Butch pointed to the fast-moving junk. “Except it wasn’t flowing like this.”

  The trees weren’t as scoured and leafless on the Missouri River side as they’d witnessed on the Mississippi, indicating the rushing floodwaters down at Cairo hadn’t come from the new river. That was a bit of luck, as it suggested they might find intact marinas and gas stations farther upstream. But to get there, they needed to go into the hurricane swirls of debris coming at them.