Winds of Ares: An Apocalypse Thriller Druga, Jacqueline (top 5 ebook reader .TXT) 📖

estimating stops, we’re at thirty hours to get there, and that’s only stopping for fuel. That doesn’t include any problems … which we will have.”

“Then we need to lighten the load,” he said. “We just filled all the cars. Next stop we ditch them. There’s only sixteen people on the bus. We can fit the seven from the cars. We can’t ditch the pickup, that’s pulling the horses. The school bus was fine pulling it when it didn’t have my horses.”

“Can we put the horses in the tractor trailer?”

Martin shook his head. “No way to safely trailer them in the back. And don’t ask to ditch the horses.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” I sadly chuckled. “Lane would leave me behind first.”

Martin pulled up a chair. “This wasn’t fair to you. I just thought I was doing a good thing, bringing these people, trying to save as many as I could. But it is more than you just driving the way, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” I replied. “There are kids. When we left, we just packed up and left. We didn’t have a contingency if we ran into a storm. We need our strength if we do and driving straight through is going to weaken us. But can we stop? If so, how long, when?” I placed my elbow on the table and rested my face in my hands. “That’s not even considering food and water.”

“I didn’t think. That’s on me. I will be glad to take responsibility. You can be our knowledge, our storm person.”

I shook my head. “It would drive me crazy. But you can help with the storm contingency. Since you’ve been in these types of storms. What happens, what everyone has to know. Like what do we do if one comes and we’re nowhere near shelter.”

“I do know this,” Martin said. “If one is coming, we can’t outrun it. But … we can change direction. A funnel isn’t going to chase you. They’re like a Queen song, they got a one track mind. And the funnel doesn’t change it.”

A knock came on the RV door and it opened.

Alice stood there. “We’re ready to roll.”

I slid from the table. “Thank you. And Alice, how long do you think it will be until we need to fuel again?”

“About three hundred miles. Give or take a few,” she replied, then walked from the RV.

Martin stood. “Jana, I know you want to try to stay ahead of this thing. But it’s always an option that if it looks like we can’t, we just dig in, wait it out and then head to apocalypse camp.”

It wasn’t that simple. I didn’t tell Martin that. Olympus was the so called apocalypse camp because it was the only place that could protect us from what was coming.

If we had to let it pass, if we had to dig in, chances were there’d be no digging out.

ELEVEN – FLIP SIDE

I don’t know how we didn’t run into it. Timing maybe. If we had taken longer at that first fuel up, it would have been a disaster. I wasn’t even thinking about it. The storm Julius said would hit Wichita then Kansas had made its way through not long after us.

We learned this when we stopped for fuel just outside of Arkansas City, Kansas.

A man at the station pumping gas asked if we were from Freedom.

I remember passing through Freedom, it was fine. There were no high winds, just a steady rain fall like we had been running into.

The man then told us that a huge funnel wiped it out and was headed northeast.

It was an eye opening experience, a little frightening I didn’t even think of that. I had to be more cautious, there were people counting on me. A lot.

Including me, Lane, Martin and the kids, there were thirty people.

Thirty.

Five were children. Two mine, Rosie’s two grandchildren and a toddler boy. Not sure how old he was, he was a thick and strong little one. He was with the couple in the first car.

We did, however, have a school nurse and mechanic with us, so that was a good thing.

The plan to lighten the load didn’t go as well as I hoped. The parents with the toddler were fine with ditching their car and getting on the bus. But Walter, his wife and the other couple with them wouldn’t do it.

He actually argued with us, but it wasn’t worth it. I didn’t even hear what he had to say, it was one of those things I blocked out. I did give him the location in case we got separated. In fact, I gave everyone the targeted location … just in case.

Having left Arkansas, we were making great time and a third of the way through our journey. If we could make another two hundred miles, I would be fine with stopping to get some rest. In fact, I started looking at my map. I had marked places we could stop, and emergency areas.

We were really ahead of everything, power was still on in every place we passed, and the storms hadn’t hit yet.

We seemed to be the only ones traveling.

A part of me wondered if the entire apocalypse pilgrimage was a wasted effort.

It wouldn’t be a bad thing if it were.

I set my sights on Springfield as a good stopping point. We could stop for the evening, rest up, fuel up and head back out. I even picked out a designated parking garage there. Of course, that was before I had a caravan.

Just after Cedar Vale, things changed. The wind picked up, the sky grew more overcast, and the rain fell a little harder. Our pace slowed down, and I could feel the RV moving a little with the wind. It was kind of like driving a small car on the highway and having a semi pass you. I didn’t need to be a weather expert to know something was brewing.

We kept idle conversation going with the kids to keep their minds off of