The Darkest Winter

by Lindsey Pogue

  As I headed for the steps of the building, I noticed footprints visible in the snow, both coming and going, and it was hard to make heads or tails of them. My gut told me someone was inside, but I squinted, hoping to see through the glass as I approached, but couldn’t make out any movement.

  Aiming my Glock, I pulled the door open and stepped inside. The instant I did, a sour smell took me aback, followed by a growl that reverberated from down the hall somewhere. Then, I heard the click of a gun.

  “Drop the gun, asshole!” A familiar voice said behind me.

  I let out an audible breath and smiled to myself. “Does your mother let you talk to her with that mouth?” I turned around, ecstatic tears in my eyes.

  “Mitchell—Jesus.” Ross barreled toward me and wrapped his arms around me. “You’re alive,” he breathed, and took a step back.

  “Where have you been?” I asked. “I tried calling you.”

  Ross rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips. He was suited up in his blues like me, and he looked haggard, also like me, but other than the dark circles under his eyes and a shadow of a beard, he looked like the same old’ Ross, not crazy, just sleep deprived, and I would’ve wept if I had any tears left in me.

  “I’ve been passed out in my office until an hour ago. I woke up to Drago’s nose in my crotch.” He glanced at the German Shepard licking my hand. “My phone’s in my truck, I guess. Probably dead.” He shook his head, his brow lifted with uncertainty. “I’ve been a little out of it the past couple days. I wasn’t sure I was going to get through that fever.”

  I peered down at the dog sniffing my boots. “Where’s Calvin?” I asked. Drago never left his partner’s side.

  Ross shrugged. “No fucking clue. On patrol, at home—dead.” He sighed again. “I don’t remember if they were here when I stopped in to puke my brains out or not.” His relief faltered. “There are bodies in the back,” he said. “Demetri, Sarah, Barnes . . . I was moving them out of their offices with Drago growled at you coming in. I started covering them up, until—” He shook his head, reality settling back in. “I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. I turned on the news to another ESA saying we’re fucked and to shelter in place.”

  He nodded to the breakroom. “Have you seen the news?”

  I shook my head. The news was the least of my concerns. “We were supposed to be safe here,” he said, like he was trying to explain it to himself. “The quarantine came too fucking late. We might be up here in our own piece of winter wonderland, but all those ships coming in every day, all those tourists, that shit has spread like wildfire.”

  He walked to the phone on the reception desk and dialed someone. “Shelter in place, my ass.” He grumbled something and shook his head again. He was waking up to a chaos he was only just learning about. He hadn’t seen it first had yet. “I’ve tried calling Kelsey a hundred times in the last twenty minutes. I need to go to Fairbanks and check on her, she’s staying with her mom. I have to know if she’s all right.”

  I knew his question was coming; it was only a matter of time, and I swallowed thickly.

  He slammed the phone down, frazzled, and stepped back around the desk, finally taking me. His eyes narrowed as he scratched the side of his face, slack-jawed and staring at me. Then, he leaned closer and sniffed. “Are you drunk?” His eyes landed on the blood on my sleeves, then my untucked lapel and scruffy face. I don’t know what else he saw, but it was enough to make his body still and straighten.

  “I went by your house that morning,” he said, hesitant. “After we heard the report I wanted to check on Hannah, but she wasn’t there—no one was, only a body.” I watched with bated breath as his memories from before the fever fell back into place. “I checked Regional and Providence—she wasn’t at any of the hospitals—”

  I shook my head. “No, she wasn’t.”

  “Where’s Hannah, Jackson?” he croaked. “Where’s my sister?”

  My chin trembled as I struggled to say the words. “She’s gone[LP13].”

  Chapter 13

  Elle

  December 11

  Once I was through the congestion caused by the Coast Guard blockade down at port—limiting the people going in and coming out of the harbor, Seward Highway was less congested than I’d expected, with more stopped traffic than I’d ever seen. I flexed my gloved hands on the steering wheel, half expecting them to glow red through the quilted fabric. The fire was back, I could feel it stirring in my veins, bubbling up from somewhere I couldn’t fathom.

  My nostrils flared. I gritted my teeth. I steadied my breathing.

  This wasn’t happening, not again. I’d done everything I could to push it away and write it off the first time. I wanted it to be part of the fever—a fluke nightmare with some rational explanation I was too incoherent to remember. I exhaled the tension coiling in my arms and shoulders, and glanced up at the gray sky, quickly darkening. I didn’t know what future awaited me on the other side of Whitely Tunnel.

  There was no one on the road, not in this part of Alaska, off the beaten path, so I drove in without hesitation. It was the only way to get to the hidden city. I didn’t know what I would find on the other side, but thinking about my sister, about the possibility of a snowbank or getting run off the road by a lunatic driver—any of that was preferable to whatever was gurgling to life inside me.

  To tune out my escalating panic, I clicked the radio on, hoping for more news about the lower-forty-eight to give me something else to think about. Maybe they’d found a cure by now or discovered it was all a hoax, like Orson Welles’ radio broadcast of War of the Worlds that had caused a widespread panic.

  I turned the dial, wading through one static station after another.

  “—enemy has swept through every nation, attacking discretely, killing indiscriminately.” Eyes wide, I looked from the icy road to the familiar female voice on the radio. “We lost thousands before we even knew we were under attack. Many have already fallen, and many more will fall. But we cannot give up the fight.” I nearly forgot to breathe as I processed what she was saying.

  Under attack? Was the President saying she thought it was chemical warfare? I considered Russia and Iran, but neither made sense. The outbreak was world-wide, millions of people were dying. No, billions of people were already dead.

  “Over the past century, through technological achievements, we made our world smaller. We made the time it takes to communicate across oceans instantaneous, and the time it takes to travel those same routes nearly as fast. We made our world smaller, and in doing so, we sowed the seeds of our own destruction: a global pandemic.”

  I gripped the steering wheel more tightly, grateful for the dull light at the end of the cement tunnel. Jenny would be on the other side. She would either be alive or dead. I pressed my lips together.

  “Survive. Thrive.” He continued, urging listeners to pray for guidance. “Learn from our mistakes. Let the world remain big. And most importantly, live.” The broadcast petered out and static returned.

  No. I scrambled for the volume. That couldn’t be all. I turned the station dial maniacally, trying to find something else—more information, anything.

  What were we supposed to do next? I glanced furtively between the road and the radio. “What the hell are we supposed to do?” I shouted at the radio silence.

  A bank of snow threatened to block the end of the tunnel, but I wouldn’t let it keep me from Jenny. I could see her complex in the distance, ugly, tall, and ominous, yet somehow a beacon. I plowed through the snow, shifting the old Bronco into four-wheel-drive. My heart leapt with momentary lightness and I almost smiled before I ran over something in the snow, my head crashing into the window.

  “Shit!” I hissed, cupping my ear. It rang with pain, shooting into my scalp, and through the tears burning the backs of my eyes. I grew more desperate and angrier. Gritting my teeth, I drove faster, determined to be out of the fucking car and inside with Jenny. We w
ould figure out what to do. She was always the problem solver even if I didn’t agree with her solutions most of the time.

  As I followed the road around the side of the snowcapped mountain, I ran over another bump, this time more prepared. The mounds of snow were difficult to see in the onslaught of dusk, but I maneuvered around the ones I could while the radio continued to seek a clear channel. It stopped when the static broke. “I’m on the highway to hell—” I dialed past the scratchy, high-pitched wail that blared through the speakers, glad to know KVON was still playing their adequate end-of-days soundtrack for survival inspiration.

  But when no other stations came in, not even recirculated news, I switched to AM. There had to be someone else broadcasting. I scanned over Mozart’s Serenade Thirteen and stopped when I heard a man’s animated voice.

  “—you heard it from me. It’s like I’ve been saying. They don’t want you to know what’s really going on. It’s all part of the plan—the end of days wasn’t just some biblical story, it was part of a master plan.” Enthusiastic laughter emanated through the speakers. “Naysayers said I was crazy, but what do you think now? I hate to say I told you so, but . . . I did. I told you so. They’ll tell you there are safe places to go, but can we really trust them after all of this?” I switched off the radio. The last thing I needed to do was listen to the rantings of someone crazier than I was.

  I didn’t allow myself to even consider that his words might’ve been true. I parked the truck just outside the building, next to an SUV covered in days’ worth of snow, and peered up at the tower hovering above. There had to be a hundred rooms, at least, but only a dozen windows were lit up, the rest were ominously dark. Jenny’s warning boomed back to life. Don’t come to Whitely, Elle.

  One ugly, looming high-rise in the middle of picturesque Alaska. The one building to house the abandoned military town’s inhabitants—two-hundred-plus residents living under the same roof, doctors, elected officials, and fisherman alike, keeping them safe from Mother Nature’s fury. The damage left behind by the major earthquake that destroyed most of the town in the 1960s had created a place that bred ghost stories and strange disappearances amidst the Sound’s renowned beauty. It was one of the Alaska’s famed oddities.

  Cut off from the rest of the world by a single road that wound beneath the mountain, Whitely seemed the perfect place to hide away until the outbreak blew over, but I wondered if I wasn’t making a dire decision by going in. The longer I sat there, the more uncertain I became, even if I knew what needed to be done.

  Pulling my beanie down over my ears and zipping up my jacket, I opened the gun case I’d set on the floor and pulled out the pistol and a full magazine. I stared at it momentarily, wondering if I was being paranoid. I didn’t want to scare people walking in there, but after Thomas and the news reports, I would not take any more chances either.

  Inhaling a steadying breath, I pushed open the driver side door and shoved the Glock in my waistband as I braved the cold.

  Mountains surrounded the town, barely the size of an Anchorage city block, and abandoned army barracks stood like watchmen on either side, black, gaping mouths and eyes where windows and entrances used to be.

  A cruise ship was anchored at the pier, and I had a sickening suspicion being a port to the Alaskan Marine Highway would not work in my favor.

  In a rush to get to the front steps, I tripped in the snow and fell to the ground, my knees colliding with the frozen cement, my palms following.

  “UGH!” I growled and pushed myself up off the ground. The building’s exterior lights barely illuminated the darkness. I climbed to my feet and kicked the lump in the snow, my foot colliding instantly with an unyielding mass and my ankle twisted at the contact. With a silent gasp, I drew back my leg, and froze.

  Stripes. I could see colorful, delicate stripes. I leaned closer, picking at the snow and screamed. A hand—a glove-covered hand.

  Stumbling back, I scanned the uneven clumps of snow, understanding what they were.

  I darted inside, desperate to separate myself from the frozen graveyard, and I slammed it shut behind me, as quickly as the hinges would allow. “Hello!” I called. The building was stark and drab, like you might find an old office building, but there were no bustling receptionists wearing too much makeup and there was no droll elevator music playing from the overhead speakers. The place was dead quiet, save for the papers taped to the walls that settled back into place in my wake. I wasn’t sure what I smelled, something musty and yet faintly sweet, like an overripe banana.

  “Hello?” I said, pulling my beanie off. The warmth of the building pressed on me like a heated blanket.

  I assumed I was in the lobby, but there was no reception desk or directory. There was nothing to denote it was the entry of the building, save for a corkboard with flyers on the left wall before the elevator, and directional signs hanging from the ceiling. I took a step closer. The stairwell was offset to the right, but the offices were denoted to the left, Mercantile to the right. A building like this had a managerial team, and that’s who I needed to help me. They would help me find Elle’s apartment, they would see the similarity and believe me. If anyone was still alive. The voice was quiet and in the back of my mind, but it was there all the same.

  A couple offices were open a few doors down, light pouring into the dimly lit hall. Hope swelled, and I ran toward them. “Hello—”

  I stopped in the doorway of the Mayor’s office. A woman with a dark red ponytail was sleeping on her desk, at least that’s what I told myself as I stepped inside. Her back was to me and a discarded clipboard with a list of names rested on the desktop beside her.

  The heat inside me swirled and I tried to catch my breath as my heart beat faster and faster. JJ St. James was on the list with a line through it. Jennifer June St. James. My mom was the only person who ever called Jenny, JJ. But that didn’t matter. Did the line mean she was dead or better? Most of the people on list would’ve had a line through their name if it meant she was dead, wouldn’t they? If billions of people were dying, almost all of them would be crossed out. My heart sank, and I exhaled a steadying breath.

  “Ma’am—” I stepped closer, voice hardened with reserve, as the scent of vomit hit my nose. I saw it pooled around her face too late, and I jumped back. Her open mouth and fogged over eyes branded to memory, and my insides twisted.

  I barely caught sight of her nameplate before I ran from the room, right into a sign on the wall I hadn’t noticed before. Big, bold red letters were scribbled on a piece of paper: Q3. On a normal day I wouldn’t give it a second thought but one word screamed in the back of my mind. Quarantine.

  Sweat was slick on my upper lick and under the layers of skin. The building was sweltering as I peered down the hall to the left and then to the right, uncertain where each hallway led. I didn’t want to find out where Q1 and Q2 were, or any that followed either.

  “Jenny!” I shouted, forcing myself to focus as the harrowing realization I might be the only one alive in the entire building overcame me. On wobbling legs, I lunged into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, ignoring the sting of my sore ankle as I took the stairs up two at a time.

  She was better, just like I was better, and if Jenny was anywhere, she would be in her apartment not down some dark hallway that housed bodies I wasn’t sure I could bear seeing.

  . I knew she couldn’t be able to hear me eight stories up, but I called her name all the same, the sound of my voice—the sound of something—putting me more at ease.

  “Jen!” I yelled againShe’d complained in one of our infrequent talks about moving her things up eight floors, but I couldn’t remember which apartment. All these years her reclusiveness had bothered me, but only now did I realize how bad it really became.

  Up and up I went, climbing up each floor of the tower until I thought the stairs would never end. Out of breath, I finally reached the eighth floor and flung the door open, wheezing as I gasped for air.

  “Jenny
. . .” My voice was barely a whisper. A hall of doorways forked the right and a line of doorways forked to the right. On shaking legs, I veered to the right, inhaling the stale hot air that permeated the floor. It didn’t smell like below, only flaring my hope. I knocked on the door of the first apartment at the end of the hall until I could find my breath. “Jenny!”

  Frantic, I glanced around, and shouted for her as I veered to the right. I had to start somewhere, and I would pound on every door until I found her. “Jenny, it’s Elle!”

  I pounded on the next. “Hello? Is anyone in there?” I couldn’t bring myself to say alive. “I’m looking for my sister, Jenny St. James.” I pounded harder. “Hello!” I sprinted to the next and then the next. One door wasn’t latched and opened as my knuckles grazed it, but no one was inside. The fact there was no body made me hopeful. They could’ve gotten out of here before things got too bad. Jenny might’ve gone with them.

  But just as hopeful as the thought made me, tears blurred as I reached the next apartment. “Hello,” I said, desperation weakening my voice more than before. “Jenny, it’s me.” If she was here, she was likely dead. If she left, how would I find her?

  I tried the knob, but like most of the others, it was locked and I moved on.

  I knocked on 805 and 806, then moved on to 807 and 808. “Somebody!” I shouted. I peeled off my jacket, skin feeling like fire. “Someone,” I repeated. It wasn’t only Jenny I worried about anymore. Was I the only living person in this building? It was impossible and overwhelming, and any hope I had cracked.

  “Please,” I cried, pounding on door 810. I couldn’t give up. “Do you know Jenny St. James?” Sweat beaded on my brow, and my lungs pulled manically at whatever they could get. I was hyperventilating, and I feel the panic swarming me like a cloud of bees blocking out the last rays of the sun. I leaned back against the wall and covered my face with my hands. I had to find Jenny.

  A door down the hall creaked open and my head popped up. “Hello?” I wiped the tears from my eyes and held my breath.