Endless Winter Box Set: Books 1 - 4

by Theresa Shaver

  “Ok, so far so good but that doesn’t mean that there’s no one out here so we still need to keep an eye out. Those smoke trails are probably cooking fires so it tells us that there are people at the fields. I don’t know if they would have heard the engine going by or not but we’ll have to be ready on the way back just in case. I figure we have around thirty minutes to where we’re heading so everybody can relax a bit but still keep a lookout, please.”

  As the miles disappear under our tires, my mind goes back to the day that started all of this. The day I traveled this road with my parents. The last day of normal life and the last day I had a mother. I was so confused and scared on that drive. I didn’t really understand or believe what my dad had told us about our world ending. Even after AIRIA told Mom and I the number of bombs that dropped and the death toll, the scope of it was just too big for my ten-year-old mind to really grasp. I honestly don’t think I really got it until three years after we entered the bunker when I stepped outside for the first time to search for my father’s body and saw the snow and ash that the world had become. I can still remember staring down at my dead iPod on that drive and thinking it was the worst that could happen because I wouldn’t have my music to listen to. I shake my head at the ridiculousness of that when hours later my mom bled out in front of me.

  Joslin nudges me with her elbow so I turn my head her way with a blank expression, still half lost in my memories.

  “You okay? You look kind of lost,” she asks.

  I blink at her a few times while working at putting those images back into the box in my mind where I store them. I have to clear my throat when it comes out in a croak as I try to answer her.

  “Yeah, just remembering back to the day this started. My parents and I traveled this way from the city. It was the last time we were together as a family.”

  She reaches over and takes my hand into hers while Marsh leans forward and rest a hand on my shoulder. They don’t say anything, they’re just there and it’s all I need to close the box of memories away. This is my family now and I will look forward out of the windshield because the future there is bigger and brighter than the past in the rear-view mirror.

  Lance breaks the silence when he slows the truck and points ahead and says, “I think this is our exit coming up. Look there.”

  I turn and look out the passenger window as we slowly pass what was once a place of family fun that I had been to a few times when I was younger. The skeleton of the roller coaster I never had the courage to ride reaches up on the other side of the fence surrounding the amusement park. More memories flash through my mind of better times but I thrust them away as we drive up onto the overpass and the truck comes to a stop. There’s no time for memories now because standing in the road in front of us is a group of six people. It’s game time.

  Chapter Ten … Joslin

  I lean forward in my seat to get a better look at the ragged looking people standing in the road. Four of them are wearing the familiar uniforms that I was forced to wear for seven years and the other two are in civilian clothing. They are so dirty and covered in ash that it’s impossible to recognize any of them but I think there are four women and two men. Only one of the men is armed with a rifle hanging from its sling on his shoulder. It’s pointed down to the pavement but Lance isn’t taking any chances.

  He barks. “Guns up!”

  The three of us in the front seat immediately lift our guns up and point at the group through the windshield and Marsh is hanging out his back window with his weapon trained on them as well. Lance leans toward his window to yell out at them but before he can, they all lift their hands in the air except the guy with the rifle. He shrugs the strap off of his shoulder and lets the sling slide down his arm until the rifle clatters to the road.

  Lance glances our way. “Okay, everyone out. Marsh, keep an eye on our backs in case this is a setup and we’re getting flanked.”

  Everyone’s doors open and we all slide out with Lance, Skylar and me heading to the front of the truck and Marsh going to the back. The three of us line up in front of the hood, keeping our weapons raised and pointed at the people with their hands up. Now that I can see them better, I recognize two of the women in uniform but none of the others. Before any of us have a chance to speak, one of the women takes a half step forward.

  “Frost, is that you?” she asks.

  When I only nod but keep my expression blank, she sighs and steps back into line.

  “We don’t want any trouble. We’re just passing through on the way to the city.”

  Lance steps toward them and places a boot on the rifle and drags it back toward us causing the male soldier to shrug indifferently. “No bullets left anyways.” He mutters.

  Lance studies each one of them closely before asking, “Is it just the six of you?” When they all nod their heads “yes” he asks, “Any other weapons?”

  The woman who recognized me shakes her head. “A couple of us have knives but no guns, if that’s what you mean.”

  Lance relaxes slightly but still keeps his rifle trained on them. “You say you’re headed into the city? What can you tell us about what happened after the bunker shut down?”

  Before she has a chance to answer, the male soldier practically spits out a reply.

  “A lot of people died, thanks to you!”

  He’s glaring at me with rage-filled eyes and I’m surprised to feel nothing from his words. After years of being terrified by these soldiers, I no longer have any fear of them so I just shrug a shoulder and meet his eyes dead on when I reply.

  “Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

  I hear a tiny snort of laughter from Skylar but keep my eyes on the soldier. I can see from his body’s stance that he would like nothing more than to attack me but our guns hold him in place. The woman intervenes in a tone that says she’s had this conversation with him many times.

  “Give it a rest, Tony. It’s time to move on.” She looks closer at Skylar and then nods. “I’ve talked to you before, right? You’re the girl that lived in the bunker before we got there. You said the General was your uncle, right?”

  Skylar nods. “Yup, we rode out to the fields together. You’re Megan?”

  Megan nods but this time the guy in civilian clothes steps forward and glares at Skylar.

  “Yeah, thanks for letting us into your bunker! That sure worked out just peachy for us!” He says sarcastically with an angry scowl on his face.

  Skylar laughs. “Right?! It totally sucked having three meals a day and hot showers. Can you believe how I screwed you over by letting you into my home and then inviting a dictator to come in and enslave us all? I totally conned you!”

  Lance steps forward with an annoyed shake of his head. “Enough! You two men have nothing I want to hear so take four steps back, get on your knees and keep your mouths shut!”

  He motions with his rifle to get them moving but stops when he catches the look of pure hatred being sent our way by the only woman not in a uniform. He points at her. “Yeah, you can join them too.”

  Lance forces them back down the road and onto their knees with their backs to us before rejoining us. I keep a close watch on the other three women in uniform but they don’t seem to care about how we’re treating their traveling companions. They just look tired more than anything. Lance calls Marsh to join us so while we wait for him I quickly grab my pack from the truck and bring it out to the road. I pull out two of the four plastic water bottles I had brought with me and hand them over to the women. I don’t feel any loyalty to them but I know that they were probably victimized over the years under the General’s rule.

  Megan sends me a grateful nod and I wait as the three of them drink their fill before asking for information.

  “Tell us what happened after the bunker shut down.”

  Megan looks over her shoulder at the people on their knees and then back to us with a tired sigh.

  “Civil War happened. After the bunker doors shut for good there was mass co
nfusion at first. I don’t know why, but there was a pile of five or six rifles in the middle of the yard and once people realized that AIRIA was offline and not going to shoot, they all went for the weapons at once. It was like a mosh pit. I mean, a full-on brawl deathmatch! I saw at least six guys get their throats slit. I didn’t want any part of it so me and a couple of the girls took off right away and headed down the mountain toward town. We met up with Tony halfway down and figured safety in numbers so we let him come with us. He’s a bit of a jerk but he’s one of the better ones. He never did anything to stop some of the abuses of the other soldiers against the women but he never took part in it. Once we hit the highway we ran into the other two civilians and they just sort of tagged along with us. I was part of the crew that transferred supplies out to the field so I knew that we had to get to it before the others did if we wanted food. We kept up a pretty good pace and it only took us a few days to reach the fields. We hung out there for three days eating our fill hoping that no one else would show up. We’d been keeping watch on the highway and on the fourth day we saw a huge group of people heading our way. We grabbed what we could and hid in the trees until we could see what the situation was. Turns out some of the General’s command and more hard-core followers had rounded up a bunch of the civilians and were force marching them to the fields to work. We stuck around and watched them from the tree line for two days and decided we didn’t want any part of it. When we left and headed this way it looked like they had somewhere around twenty people working the fields with six former soldiers guarding them.”

  Lance curses and looks away while Megan pauses, so I ask my next question.

  “Why did you decide to go to the city?”

  She shrugs a shoulder. “Somewhere to go? No real reason other than we thought we’d be able to find resources easier there. We know Canmore’s been stripped clean and heading west further into the mountains didn’t seem like a great plan so that left heading east to Calgary. We detoured around the city on our way here but it looks like most of the infrastructure was still intact. We figured that the majority of the population would have died off with the radiation wave during the first few weeks after the bombs dropped leaving plenty of canned goods for us to scavenge.” She shrugs again. “I don’t know where else to go, so the city is as good as the next place. We’ve been moving pretty slow for the past few weeks with long stops when it rains to collect as much water as we can. Honestly, we should have been in the city by now but none of us have much energy to go more than three or four miles a day.”

  Lance looks over the three women in consideration and then points at the ground. “Grab a seat on the pavement and hold tight. We need to have a conversation in private.”

  When the women settle onto the blacktop, he motions for the rest of us to join him on the opposite side of the road. He takes another glance back at them and then the other three further down still on their knees before turning back to us with an arched eyebrow. “What do you guys think?”

  Marsh and Skylar just shrug so I give my opinion. “That sounds pretty much exactly what I thought would happen so I believe them. What do you want to do about them?”

  Lance lifts a hand and rubs at his forehead. “Well, we have a couple of different options here. I don’t really want to let them loose so close to where we’re about to go scavenging. I don’t put it past those three over there to try and come after us to take the truck. So we could load them up in the back in the cargo area and drive them a few miles closer to the city and drop them off. It wouldn’t take very long to take them and get back here and it would give us some breathing room if for some reason they were stupid enough to try and come back for the truck. The other option is a little bit more complex. I have no interest in the three down the road but what about the three female soldiers? Joslin, what’s your take on inviting them to join us? We have always planned to add to our numbers and from a security standpoint, they would be ideal as they’re already trained on weapons. Do you think they would be a good fit for our group?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. I can tell you that none of them probably have any loyalty to the General’s male soldiers but I don’t know any of them well enough to say whether or not they’d fit in with us. We’d have to talk to them further before making that decision.”

  He nods his head and looks to Skylar and Marsh who has his back to us and has been covering the area while we talked. “What about you two? Do you guys have any problem with me feeling them out about them joining us?”

  Skylar shakes her head. “I’m good with talking to them some more and trying to get a feel for them. We could always blindfold them and drive them back to camp to see how they do for a few days. Kind of like a probationary period.”

  Lance nods. “Marsh, your thoughts?”

  He glances over his shoulder at Lance. “I’m good with whatever you guys decide. It’s not like we’re going to marry them. If they don’t work out or we get a bad vibe we can always drive them back this way and drop them off. Once they’re in the camp they wouldn’t really know where they were at first anyways if we blindfolded them on the way in. I say we talk to them a bit more and then decide. But whatever we’re going to do we should get on it. I don’t think we should make this last too much longer. We still have a lot of work to do in the RV dealerships.”

  Lance looks over his shoulder at the three women and nods. “Agreed. Let’s go feel them out on it.”

  We walk back over to the three sitting women and crouch down in front of them. Lance takes the lead. “So, once you guys get into the city are you going to look for survivors and try and join up with another community? What’s your long-term plan?”

  Megan looks at her companions before answering. “We don’t really have a plan. We’re just going to search buildings for supplies and look for a place where we can set up a long-term base that we can stock and hopefully ride out the coming winter. Why do you ask?”

  Lance looks at us one more time before answering her. “We’ve got a pretty good setup going on and we have enough supplies and crops growing to support a few more people through the winter. We could be open to expanding our community for the right people.” He tilts his head toward the three others down the road. “I’m saying those three aren’t the right type of people but you three might be if you’re interested.”

  For the first time since we encountered them, I see a flicker of life in their eyes. Megan glances between the four of us before responding. “You guys came from the West, right? Does that mean wherever your setup is it’s closer to Canmore?”

  When Lance hesitates in answering her, she gives a quick shake of her head. “You don’t have to tell me where you are set up, I just want to know if it’s back in the area we came from.”

  “It is in that area but it’s pretty isolated.” Lance answers.

  Megan frowns and sighs disappointingly. “It’s not a good idea to stick around that area. Those guys at the growing fields, they’re the worst of the worst of the General’s men. No matter how isolated you are, eventually they’re going to find you and you’re going to have a war on your hands. We’re done with war and we’re done with anything to do with the men we were stuck with for the last seven years. I don’t even know if we will let Tony stick around. All we want now is to put as much distance between us and them and try to eke out some sort of life. We appreciate you offering us a place with you all but we’re not interested in going back anywhere near those guys.”

  Lance slowly starts to nod his head in understanding. “Fair enough. I can understand why you’d want to get further away from them so here’s what we’re going to do. Just for our own security, we’re going to zip tie all you guys and load you into the back of the cargo truck. We’re going to drive you about ten miles closer to the city and drop you off. That gets you closer to your destination and puts some distance between us and your angry friends. Are you good with that?”

  The expressions on all three women’s faces show relief whe
n they nod their agreement. We all get to our feet and Lance and Marsh head further down the road to where the other three wait and explain to them what’s about to happen. I’m slightly surprised when all three of them come along quietly without objecting to being restrained but I guess ten miles in a truck instead of on their tired feet is worth it.

  As soon as we have them loaded and the cargo door secured we all jump back into the truck. Lance makes a U-turn and takes the overpass exit back down onto the eastbound lanes of the highway. We’re all quiet for the first few miles as we think about what Megan said about the men that we now know are at the growing fields. Even though there’s a considerable distance between our camp and theirs, it still makes me nervous knowing that they’re that close to us. It’s been easy to forget about the dangers they pose to us in the last month-and-a-half of peace at the camp but Megan might be right. If those guys do find us it will be war.

  Marsh is the first to break the silence when he leans his arms on the seat back behind us. “Maybe that lady was right. Maybe we should have gone further from Canmore when we settled. No offense Joslin, the camp is great and it did have everything we needed but maybe we should consider a move after we finish harvesting. I don’t know about you guys but I don’t really want to go up against those soldiers if they find us.”

  I turn sideways in my seat to make eye contact with him. “No offense taken at all. I did consider Calgary as an option to relocate to. There are actually quite a few locations in the city that would work to start up a community. Calgary had a lot of green space where crops could be grown and there are a lot of buildings to scavenge for anything we might need. The only reason I didn’t choose to go there was the initial logistics of it. I knew that when the time came to run we would be limited to what supplies we could take with us. The camp was the only place I could find close enough that allowed me and Jackson to make multiple supply runs without setting off alarm bells. There’s no way we would have been able to make multiple trips into Calgary and back without somebody noticing something was off.”