Page 10 of South of Nowhere (Colter Shaw #5)

10.

L uck was not a word George Garvey would use under the circumstances.

But now that the initial shock from the roller-coaster ride when the levee collapsed had faded, he was feeling slightly differently.

No one had been badly injured.

Kimberly’s nail polish had spilled onto her face, just missing an eye. Trav’s phone and tablet had whacked him on the head. He had jammed his thumb. And one of Sonja’s knitting needles had jabbed her side but not broken skin; he could only imagine the injury that might have caused—and how ill prepared they were to do anything about the wound. There was probably a first aid kit somewhere in the SUV but it would be as useless as they all were: gauze, Bactine and Band-Aids.

Luck…

And while the engine had stopped, the battery was still functioning. He didn’t see how this could be the case but Trav—the science person—said something about the lack of salt content and how fresh water was a very bad conductor of electricity. They had the flashers on and one of them would take turns beeping the horn—Trav had the duty at the moment, leaning past his father from the driver’s-side second-row seat.

And then there was the air situation. After the Chevy had righted itself, it had bobbed, not sinking right away. With the electricity still working, George had rolled down his window, planning for the family to escape that way. But they were riding too low for him to risk opening it farther. Still they had a good five or six minutes of fresh air flowing into the SUV before he’d had to roll the window up once more, and they sank below the surface.

There would have to be people looking for them, he believed. He was not far behind the pickup truck and it was likely, if he’d taken even a glance into the rearview mirror, the driver would have seen them tumble off the road. Of course, he might not have survived but assuming he did, he’d have called in about the Suburban. There’d been another car too—a blue sports car in front of him , and between the two surely someone had gotten a glimpse of the big white SUV.

Luck…

But what was the luckiest of all would seem like a disaster to anyone else. The vehicle was sunk deep in mud, which provided a nearly airtight seal. There was only minor seepage. Thank you, General Motors.

“Can’t we,” Trav asked, “like, break a window and swim out?” He loved action movies, where breaking glass and gunshots and improbable escapes often substituted for plot.

George told his son, “No, even if we could break one, we’d flood before we could get out. We need to keep the windows up. Don’t worry—they’ll be looking for us.”

Sonja had tried all four cell phones and both iPads. No signal.

Hardly a surprise.

She set them on the dash. Travis again tried the more primitive form of communication.

Honk .

Maybe someone was nearby and—

Suddenly, startling them all, Kim began to scream. She was thrashing in her seat.

She accidentally walloped her brother on the nose.

“Ow, bitch.”

“Travis,” Sonja warned and she spun toward the backseat and said to her daughter, “Honey, no! It’s okay. We’ll be all right.”

The screaming continued.

“Mom, make her stop!” Travis was crying now.

In his profession George often saw such emotion. But his role then was conciliatory. He was kind, he was gentle, he was persuasive.

He presented the same George Garvey to the children, day in, day out.

And conflicts worked out. Harmony returned.

But now. This was different. He had only one thought in his mind. That they survive.

And screaming away the little oxygen they had was not acceptable.

He spun around, grabbed his daughter by the shoulders and raged, “Stop it now!” He shook her hard.

She gasped, her eyes wide. “Daddy!”

“Now!”

Sonja and Travis stared in shock.

This broke his heart. And, if they survived, it was possible that he’d just created an irreparable rift between them.

But a parent’s role wasn’t to coddle. It was to raise, and raise right.

He would rather she hate him and live than love him and not.

“You’re hurting me!” Another scream.

“You understand? Stop it!”

“Honey…” Sonja was speaking to him now. She touched his arm. He didn’t brush it away but he stiffened and she removed her fingers quickly.

“Understand?” he growled, struggling to keep from bawling like his son.

And he controlled the urge. Because his family needed him. George had thought that a husband/father’s role was to be a breadwinner, and—along with coaching and attending plays and the like—that was all he was put on earth to do.

But those missions seemed trivial, even silly.

Now, he had to become somebody else. A despotic king.

And with a sharp sudden breath, his daughter controlled the panic. She continued to cry, but softly. She nodded.

He released her quivering shoulders.

“Thank you.”

She ignored him and hugged herself.

He glanced toward Sonja, who regarded him with an undefinable expression, and he had no desire to try to decipher it.

“Now, I need you all to move as little as possible. And take shallow breaths. It’ll feel weird but you have to.” He looked throughout the interior of the vehicle, the dome light was on. Did that use oxygen? He didn’t see how. And darkness would only lead to panic.

Examining the windows and doors, the dash. The seal was pretty good, but water was trickling in.

“We need something to seal us up better. Do we have any ideas?”

Having a task, even one as minor as this, seemed to calm everyone down.

Sonja spoke first. “Don’t you have that stuff in the trunk for tires? If there’s a flat you can spray it in to fix the leak? It probably has some goo inside.”

“Maybe.” He sent Travis to the back to see if he could open the trunk and get the Fix-a-Flat.

“Nail polish,” Sonja said.

Would that work?

He remembered the horn.

Honk…

“Try it, Kim.”

She glowered and remained still for a moment. Then picked up a bottle from the floor with shaking hands, opened it and applied a streak to a window seam.

Yes! It took a moment to dry but it did stop some of the trickling.

“Good! How many bottles do we have, you stylish ladies?”

Sonja smiled. Kim, of course, did not.

Six, as it turned out.

The three each took two and used the brush to slather on the sweet-smelling liquid. The scent reminded him of the happier moments—forever ago, it seemed—when he smelled the same aroma as they drove blissfully along Route 13, oblivious as to what was about to happen.

Who’s Bob Dylan?

Eerily, blood red was the most common selection of polish they had brought.

“I can’t get the trunk open!” Travis was calling.

George looked back toward Travis. In the Suburban—an SUV—there was a trunk of sorts, where the jack and other tools were kept, but it was not meant to be opened with the liftgate down. He called the boy back and handed him one of the fingernail polishes.

Travis’s hands too shook as he opened the bottle. He was still crying.

“It’ll be all right,” George said. “I know they’ll be looking for us. The man in the pickup? We had our lights on. He would’ve seen us.”

Not adding that just because they didn’t see him slide off the levee didn’t mean he hadn’t fallen in a few seconds after they went over.

And drowned minutes after that.

The polish bottles were nearly all depleted and the interior of the vehicle took on a psychedelic look—a thought that struck George hard; he realized that he was lightheaded from the lack of oxygen and seemed to be slipping into and out of a dreamlike state.

Honk.

The muffled sound seemed pathetic, probably audible no more than five or six feet away.

He had a ridiculous thought that every time he honked somehow a bubble was released and it rose to the surface and blared away for the world to hear.

Crazy. A scene from a Road Runner cartoon.

Is this what depleting oxygen did to you?

Apparently so.

“Good job,” he said to Kim.

She didn’t glare. It was worse. She didn’t even acknowledge him.

He noted that Sonja was manically rubbing her fingers together.

“Just…” Her eyes were wide. She whispered, “I don’t know. Feel weird.”

He assessed and realized that he did too, in addition to the sense of tripping.

Another symptom apparently, anxiety—being fidgety in the extreme.

Honk.

It was then that another smell joined that of the polish.

No…He closed his eyes in despair.

He found Sonja looking at him.

The scent was of gasoline.

He quickly killed the light. They would just have to risk the panic that might ensue.

“Dad!” Travis called, his voice cracking.

“What are you doing?” Kim raged. It was clear that his words of reconciliation had had no effect.

“The gasoline. We can’t afford a spark.”

“Lights don’t fucking spark,” the girl shot back.

No language corrections now.

“We’re not taking any chances.”

There’d be no more honking either.

“There’s nothing more we can do. Breathe—”

“Shallow, yeah, yeah, yeah,” their daughter said.

“Kim!” Sonja said sharply.

Odd not seeing anyone’s faces during an emotional exchange.

Sonja said, “Should we tell a story?”

No,” George said. He felt an urge to gag, but controlled it.

More symptoms of the lack of oxygen, he guessed.

“Just sit back, relax.”

“And enjoy the flight,” Sonja said. “What the flight attendants tell you before you take off. Like what else is there to do?”

George gave a faint laugh, and squeezed his wife’s hand. He had no idea if the children smiled. They gave no verbal reaction.

Was that the last time the two of them would laugh together?

He reached for the seat control to recline it, so he could lie back some.

But then thought: Spark.

The gasoline fumes were stronger now. Would they kill the family before the lack of oxygen? They had to be poisonous.

Again a fierce burst of panic.

Travis gagged, then it stopped.

“Son.”

“That smell.”

Sit back…

In the silence he closed his eyes, then opened them. The blackness was actually more intense with his eyes open. When they were shut, phantom light bursts wandered in his vision, which was oddly comforting.

Relax…

He had a thought.

So this is what it’s like to be in a coffin.

He didn’t share those words with anyone, of course, but he allowed himself a faint manic smile.

And enjoy the flight…