Running on Fumes Read online

  BLOWOUT

  I didn’t have to look at the GPS to know we were getting close. Hundreds of white windmills stretched out over the desert.

  This had to be the San Gorgonio Pass. Frank had been telling me about it last night. I was having trouble falling asleep. Adrenaline was pumping through me just thinking about what we might find at the compound.

  When I’m feeling that way, one thing that can calm me down is hearing Frank yammer. He comes up with some interesting stuff sometimes. And last night he filled me in on the windmills.

  I told you he’s part reference librarian, right? The good thing is, he’s part cop, too. A solid combo.

  But anyway, before all the facts conked me out, I got the scoop on the wind turbines. It’s pretty amazing. See, hot air rises over the Coachella Valley and forces cooler air through a pass between the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains.

  The wind gets up to twenty miles an hour. And that gets the windmills really spinning. The people who own the land sell the electricity the wind turbines generate. They farm wind.

  I think next time my guidance counselor asks what career I have in mind, I’m going to say that. Wind farmer. But really, I’m pretty sure I’ll end up a detective or a PI or something. I need the excitement.

  Frank pulled up alongside me. He tapped his GPS. I looked down at mine.

  Blank screen.

  Uh oh.

  I took the next exit off the highway and pulled into the first gas station I spotted. The first and only gas station. The exit hadn’t even led to a town—just the station, and a diner that looked like it had been closed for fifty years. The newspaper over the windows was torn and yellow.

  I checked the GPS again. Still dark. I was hoping the malfunction was a windmill thing. But no.

  Frank rolled up behind me and took off his helmet. So did I. “Guess we’re out of GPS signal range. We’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way,” he said. He took the map that had been delivered with our assignment out of his backpack.

  I leaned close so I could study it too. “Seems like we should get on this access road instead of the freeway.”

  “Yeah. Then we should see a road cutting into the desert a couple miles down.” Frank returned the map to his backpack.

  I started to put my helmet back on, then I hesitated. It seemed like we were dead center in the middle of nowhere. The dinky gas station was probably the last place to get supplies.

  “I’m going to stock up on water,” I told Frank.

  “I’ll fill up the bikes.”

  I headed into the little store—not much more than a couple of food racks and a fridge next to the cashier. The place smelled like unwashed feet.

  I grabbed a few bottles of water and some sodas for each of us, along with an assortment of chips, some beef jerky, and some of those neon pink marshmallow cakes.

  The old guy behind the counter rang up everything without comment. I paid for the grub and gas and returned to Frank. We stowed everything in our backpacks and headed for the access road.

  It ran alongside the highway for a while. But unlike the highway, we had this road all to ourselves. It was kind of cool—and kind of freaky. I mean, what kind of road has zero traffic?

  Our bikes ate up the road, mile after mile.

  Wait. Shouldn’t we have made a turn by now? According to the map, we were supposed to go only a couple of miles before we hung a left.

  Except there hadn’t been any place to turn.

  I slowed down a little. Frank brought his bike up even with mine. “Did you see a turn?” I shouted. He shook his head.

  Maybe we’d underestimated the mileage. A paper map is no GPS. I checked the odometer. Watched as another mile clicked off Then another.

  Frank waved for me to pull over. “Whaddya think?” I asked when I came to a stop next to him.

  “I think maybe one of those dirt tracks back there might actually have been a road.”

  “One of those things that looked like bunny trails?”

  Frank had the map out again. “Has to be. At least if we believe the map.”

  I stared in frustration at the blank screen of the GPS. What good was the thing if it didn’t work in isolated areas? Isolated areas were where you needed it most.

  “So which bunny trail do we pick?” I asked Frank. “We went by about four of them.”

  He frowned. “I guess we do it by mileage. The road we’re supposed to take is …” He laid his pinkie finger on the map, calculating. “I’d say it’s three and a quarter miles back in the other direction.”

  We turned around. I watched the odometer click one, two, three miles. I scanned the left side of the access road. A fifth of a mile later I spotted a dirt path heading out into the desert.

  It had to be what we were looking for. Clearly Frank thought so too. He swung his bike onto the trail.

  I followed him, slowing down. The bumpy path wasn’t made for speed. Good thing we were on our motorcycles. A car wouldn’t have cut it.

  I didn’t really miss the speed, though—even though I usually want to go everywhere as fast as possible. I thought there wouldn’t really be anything to look at in the desert, but I was wrong. There were those cacti that look like guys with their hands up. And these stunted spiky trees. Tumbleweeds. Actual tumbleweeds. Huge piles of boulders.

  I was so busy looking around, it took me a minute to realize that Frank had come to a stop. I pulled my bike up next to his. Right away I saw what the problem was.

  The road forked. On the map it didn’t do that.

  “You think we chose the wrong route?” I asked.

  “This should be the right road. We calculated the mileage correctly.”

  I pulled out my cell phone. No juice.

  “Well, the fork to the right heads more in the direction I think we’re supposed to be going.” I cracked open one of my sodas. The carbonation stung my dry throat.

  “Yeah,” Frank agreed. “We might as well try it. We can always turn around.” He opened a bottle of water and drank. “Caffeine dehydrates you, you know. You should drink some water with that soda.”

  “Next stop.” I drained the can, then took the lead down the trail we’d chosen. It got narrower. And narrower.

  Then it disappeared.

  Frank and I stopped for another strategy session. I took his advice and had some water and marshmallow cake.

  We decided to go down the other path for a while before we returned to the access road. It was a good choice. The path headed in the wrong direction for about a mile and a half, but then it looped back.

  I was pretty sure we were going the right way, but it would have been nice to see a road sign. There was nothing to indicate that any human had even been out here before.

  The sun beat down on my helmet. I shrugged out of my leather jacket and used one hand to stow it in the container under my seat.

  A long shadow appeared across the sand in front of me. At first I couldn’t figure out what was casting it. Then I looked up.

  A huge bird flew overhead. Black with an orange head and a wingspan that was wider than my whole body. Two of the bird’s buddies joined it. Vultures, I realized.

  I hoped they weren’t after me and Frank.

  A moment later I spotted exactly what the vultures were after. A sheep lay on the ground ahead of us. One of the vultures perched on its back. In an instant I could see a strip of the sheep’s flesh in the bird’s sharp beak.

  I stopped for a closer look. How many times do you get to see vultures in action?

  “That bighorn has to weigh more than two hundred pounds. Wonder what took it down,” Frank said.

  I eyed the sheep. Something other than vultures had already been eating it. “Isn’t there a bear on the California state flag?” I asked.

  “There are supposed to be some black bears out in the desert.”

  I looked over my shoulder. I felt like Chet, trying to make sure Brian Conrad wasn’t around.

  The other two
vultures swooped down on the sheep. There was a little squabbling with the first one about who got to eat what, then they settled down.

  Probably whatever had killed the sheep wasn’t around, or the vultures wouldn’t be there. Right?

  Maybe not. I heard a long, high, quavery howl. Followed up by a yip, yip, yip.

  “Coyote,” Frank said.

  The vultures didn’t seem too bothered by the sound.

  “Four o’clock.” My brother’s voice was low and calm.

  I turned my head to the right. A coyote was crouched beside some prickly-looking shrubs, its eyes on the sheep.

  It gave another howl. The hair on my arms stood up, even though the coyote was only about the size of a collie. Same basic head and body shape too.

  Now, don’t go thinking I’m a wimp. But even though this coyote probably weighed in at about twenty pounds and looked kinda like a pet, I knew he had to be tough. Nobody was pouring him Alpo every night. He had to go out and hunt.

  And he had the teeth to do it.

  “It doesn’t look interested in us. But we should probably—,” Frank began.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. The coyote’s yellow eyes shifted to me as I moved to start up the bike. He started toward me, belly low to the ground. In total stalking mode.

  The hair on the back of my neck went up this time—and the hair on my arms hadn’t even fallen back into place yet.

  Stare back? Don’t stare back? Yell? Don’t yell?

  Frank had chosen to be still and quiet, so I did too.

  Looking directly into a dog’s eyes is a dominance thing. I figured it was probably the same with a coyote, so I deliberately lowered my eyes.

  Of course, I couldn’t see if my strategy worked. The coyote could be about to leap on me. I shot a quick glance in the direction of the animal. I had to.

  The coyote was moving toward the sheep. I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding, then took the opportunity to rev up the bike. Frank and I left the birds and the coyote to duke it out over the sheep.

  A few miles later we stopped again. I did a bear and coyote scan, then moved my eyes lower to check for rattlers and scorpions. All clear.

  “Maybe we should go back and try another road,” Frank said. “We should be heading southeast by now.”

  The sun was pretty much directly ahead of us. And since the sun still sets in the west, we had a problem.

  I pulled out a couple of pieces of jerky and handed one to Frank. “What if we went off-road?” I asked. “Just headed in the right direction?”

  Frank considered it. “I do have my compass. And we could make some markers with pieces of one of our shirts so we could find our way back.”

  “We’re not using one of my shirts. You brought enough clean underwear to last you till the next millennium. We can use a few pairs of those.”

  I drank some water to wash down the Slim Jim. When I put the bottle back in my pack, I realized I’d just drunk half of the last one I had. I’d thought I had one more.

  “What?” Frank asked.

  “Just have to pace myself on the water,” I answered.

  “I have a bottle left.”

  “I have half of one and another soda. Plus three little bags of chips.”

  This would have been no biggie in normal circumstances. In normal circumstances there’s at least a mini-mart within blocks. A mini-mart and a fast-food place.

  But in the desert … there was nothing but desert.

  I did another cell phone check. No juice. I knew that’s what I’d see, but I had to look.

  Frank pulled a pair of boxers out of his backpack. He used his Swiss Army knife to cut a strip of cloth. Then he tied the cloth to the closest cactus.

  “We have enough hours of daylight to try your plan,” he said. He climbed back on his bike.

  We veered off the path and zoomed along. I felt like we could ride forever without hitting civilization.

  Then I saw something that made me feel like cheering: a NO TRESPASSING sign nailed to a big cactus.

  I let out a whoop and put on the brakes so hard that the bike skidded in a semicircle.

  “You’re happy that we have to turn around?” Frank asked.

  “Don’t you get it?” I asked. “That sign means that there’s something to trespass onto! That means people. We can ask for directions. Get more water.”

  “You’re right. Let’s get trespassing!” Frank led the way past the sign.

  A few miles later we saw another one: TURN BACK, PRIVATE PROPERTY. This sign was posted next to a road! It wasn’t paved or anything, but it was a road.

  I shot Frank a thumbs up. We were getting closer to … something.

  I jammed on the gas. I could get a little speed going now. Yeah! I was flying down the flat, straight road.

  Then—

  Bang!

  My back tire blew out.

  I spun out of control.

  NO TRESPASSING

  Suddenly I hit the dirt. The weight of my bike pinned me to the ground.

  I killed the motor and looked over at Joe. He’d been tossed too.

  “You okay?” I asked. I shoved the bike off and scrambled to my feet.

  “Yeah.” Joe sat on the ground next to his motorcycle. “What the heck just happened?”

  I leaned over and examined my front tire. A small, sharp spike was imbedded in it. I jerked the spike free and held it up. “This just happened.”

  Joe found a similar spike in his back tire. “I guess when they said ‘no trespassing,’ they really meant it.”

  “No kidding.” I walked back a few feet. Now that I was looking for them, I saw a bunch of the spikes scattered in the dirt.

  “So, do we walk deeper in, or back out?” Joe asked.

  I thought about the one and a half bottles of water we had between us and the small amount of food. If you could call chips and candy food.

  “In, I think. I’m hoping the guy who left these spikes is closer than the access road.”

  Joe nodded. “Yeah. It’s not like the access road would even do us that much good. We didn’t see anybody on it.”

  “We’d probably end up having to go back to that gas station.”

  And that was a lot of hiking. In the desert. With almost no water.

  Stop thinking about the water, I ordered myself. It wasn’t helping anything, but it kept slamming back into my brain.

  No water basically equals death—no matter where you are. But in the desert, death comes faster.

  We were on a mission, though. We couldn’t turn back.

  Joe picked up his bike, moved it to the side of the road, and hid it behind some brush. I moved mine, too. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy leaving them behind. We love our bikes. But we had business. And besides—who was around to steal them?

  We started to walk.

  And walk.

  And walk.

  Sweat dripped down my face and down my back. At least I was still sweating. You know your body is really going into crisis when you don’t.

  “What do you think? Drink the soda or not?” Joe asked.

  “It’ll just make you thirstier.”

  “I guess the chips are a bad idea.”

  “They’ll definitely make you thirstier. But I guess we might need the carbs for energy.”

  “I’ll save ’em,” Joe decided.

  Neither of us had mentioned the heat. What was the point in talking about it? But it was like a solid presence on top of my head. Pushing down. Making every step harder.

  I got an idea. I pulled a T-shirt out of my backpack and wrapped it around my head. “You should do this too,” I told Joe. “Use anything white. It will reflect the sun—keep you a little cooler.”

  He followed my lead, also using a T-shirt, and we kept walking.

  And walking.

  And walking.

  I didn’t like the way Joe was looking. He wasn’t picking up his feet as he walked. Each step was stirring up the sand—which we both end
ed up breathing. His eyes seemed sort of sunken in, and his lips were cracked.

  I probably looked about the same. I flashed on what Mom had said about water. How you need water to transport nutrients, and how your brain cells shrink without it.

  How long did it take for that to happen? Joe and I needed to be sharp out here.

  “Do you think ATAC would be able to find us out here?” Joe asked. “I mean, do you think we’re ending up anywhere close to where we’re supposed to be?”

  “If the signs were put up by Stench and his group, we are,” I answered. I didn’t point out that ATAC—and Dad—weren’t expecting us back for almost a week.

  We kept on walking. That’s all we could do.

  Walking, walking, walking.

  “Do you think ATAC would be able to find us?” Joe asked.

  I shot a glance at him. Did he remember he’d already asked that question? Was he getting delirious?

  I pulled my water bottle out of my backpack and took a small swallow. Then I handed it to Joe. “You should drink a little.”

  “I still have some of mine.”

  “Go ahead. We’ll share yours later.”

  Joe took a swig, then immediately coughed it back up. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Wasted it.”

  “Try it again,” I urged.

  He managed to keep the next swallow down. When he handed back the bottle, I noticed that his skin felt clammy.

  Not good.

  I checked the compass. We were going southeast. But that didn’t mean anything, because we didn’t really know where we had started from. The map I kept looking at was useless.

  I jabbed a piece of cloth onto one of the spines of the nearest cactus. If we had to turn around and retrace our steps—and our motorcycle ride—back to the access road and then back to the gas station, would Joe make it?

  Would I?

  “How about if we stop for a while?” Joe asked. “I’m getting really sleepy. Maybe we could nap until dark. We have flashlights and everything.”

  My watch read 3:14. “The sun’s going to be out for hours, and there’s no place to take cover,” I answered. “We’ll bake out here. We’ve got to keep going until we find at least some kind of shelter.”

  “Shelter, right.” Joe stopped. He used one hand to shade his eyes as he turned in a slow circle. “There’s nothing—”