The Edge of the Knife (Surviving the Fall 8)

“I’m not familiar with how these things work, but moving perpendicular to the regular motion of travel would seem to me to be a difficult endeavor. However, given that this boat is designed to maneuver the barge in all sorts of areas I think we’ll be able to get it at some point or another.”

“Good.” Rick stepped up to the controls. “You want me to drive or do you want to take a crack at it?”

Dr. Evans took a step back. “Please, by all means. I’d rather have you at the wheel in case something goes wrong.”

“No problem. Just guide me on what does what since you figured it all out already.”

Rick and Dr. Evans spent the next thirty minutes working to get the barge from the east side of the river over to the west. A three-hundred-foot length of the river was traversed numerous times as they experimented with controlling the pusher and the barge, gradually working their way across the water while dealing with the current, the ungainly barge and the darkness.

One factor that Rick was exceptionally thankful for was that the barge was empty except for trace amounts of coal that had apparently been the last thing it was hauling. If the barge had been fully loaded there would have been little to no room for the car and it would have been much more difficult to push it across the river. He and Dr. Evans guessed that the barge had been on its way back down the river after delivering a shipment of coal upriver when the event occurred. The operators of the boat most likely abandoned the craft at that point, though where they went was anyone’s guess.

Jane stood on the western bank the entire time

, watching carefully as Rick and Dr. Evans got the barge closer and closer to shore. When they were within a few feet of the edge Rick jumped from the boat to the shore, carrying with him one of the ropes attached to the barge. He and Jane ran north along the river until they reached a particularly thick oak tree which they proceeded to use as a tie-down point for the barge.

“All good?” Dr. Evans leaned out of the control room, shouting at Rick and Jane.

“It’s secure!” Rick shouted back. Dr. Evans pushed a button that lowered the pusher’s anchor over the side where it quickly dropped into the relatively shallow water near the bank, sinking deep into the silt and mud.

“Anchor’s down!” Dr. Evans called out from inside the control room. He eased the throttle back on the boat, allowing the current to gently push the barge and the boat down the river until the rope holding the barge to the tree went taut. Both the boat and the barge bumped up against the shore and Rick ran back to the barge and pointed at a coil of rope.

“Jane, grab that and loop it around that tree. I’m going to take this one and do the same down here.”

While Rick and Jane secured the barge to the shore, Dr. Evans shut off the boat’s engine and jumped on shore, glad to be off of the boat and back on dry land. He grabbed a rope from the boat and tied it to a nearby tree as well before walking over to the barge and examining it with a flashlight. Rick and Jane walked over and stood next to him once they finished their tasks and Dr. Evans looked at Rick.

“How should we do this?”

Rick looked at the car parked nearby and back at the barge again, crossing his arms as he thought. “The deck’s a good foot lower than the bank. Maybe we use those boards at the front of the barge to make a ramp? Drive the car on board with those, head across to a clear spot and drive it off the same way?”

Dr. Evans nodded. “Exactly what I was thinking. Let’s do that, unless anyone has a better idea.”

Jane shrugged and took a step back. “Sounds good to me. I’m going to stay over here out of the way until you tell me what to do.”

“All right, then.” Rick nodded. “Let’s do it.”

While the idea of rolling the car onto the barge and back off again on the other side sounded simple enough, the execution was decidedly not. The risk of losing their only method of fast transportation caused Rick to lapse into his risk-avoidance mode where he triple-checked every possible outcome of everything they were doing to make sure nothing bad would happen.

The loading process itself took a good forty-five minutes. Once the car was aboard it took another twenty to get across to the other side and secure the barge and boat in relatively the same location they had originally found it. The denseness of the trees and slope of the eastern bank of the river made the offloading process substantially riskier than the loading process had been. After a few close encounters—including one where one of the planks slipped and fell into the water—Rick breathed a huge sigh of relief as he felt the back wheels of the car hit the grass and dirt and keep moving forward.

He drove the car slowly through the trees as Jane and Dr. Evans helped guide him from alongside the vehicle. When they arrived at the edge of a road that ran alongside the trees on the bank of the river Rick stopped the car and the trio headed back to the boat to make sure they weren’t leaving anything of value behind.

While Dr. Evans and Jane were keen to get moving as quickly as possible again, Rick insisted on staying a few extra minutes to put the boat back the way they found it—minus the broken lock on the cabin door. When they finished, they stood on the shore taking a final look at the boat before heading back to pile in the small vehicle.

“I can’t believe that worked.” Jane smiled as she spoke. “You two did a good job.”

“Nah,” Rick shook his head. “We all did. Excellent work all around. And yeah, I’m a little bit surprised that worked as well as it did.”

“I rather enjoyed it.” Dr. Evans replied. “It was better than riding in that car for the last few hours.”

“Very true.” Rick sighed. “Unfortunately I think that break’s just about come to an end.”

Chapter 12

Blacksburg, VA

Dianne’s first stop in her search for Jason’s medication was the welcome desk near the door where she entered the building. A large poster hung from a stand behind the desk with a floor plan of the facility. Labels were printed over each section of the building, showing where everything from the main cafeteria to the surgical suites were located. Most of the building was taken up by single-occupancy rooms on every floor but the top that were used for housing and treating patients. Exam, surgical, administrative and other rooms and offices were primarily located around the edge of each floor with three elevators and three sets of stairs—one at each end and one in the middle—acting as the means to traverse through the different floors of the building.

Dianne studied the poster for a few minutes as she looked for any mention of a pharmacy or other section of the building but discovered nothing. Maybe it’s not labeled for security purposes? She decided to head up two floors to the main nurses station where she hoped she’d find a lead that would point her to where the medication was stored.