by Allen Kuzara
Nick brought the steaks to the table and flopped Jimmy’s down in a pleasingly heavy-handed way. Nick put his down too. Then he walked by the radio, turning it on before retiring the greasy pan to the sink.
There was nothing but static, not even that really. Just the warm sound of electric air with the occasional pop or hiss of random electromagnetic activity bouncing off the ionosphere.
“Do you think they’re up?” asked Jimmy.
“Who?” Nick played dumb.
“Lusa and Pete.”
“Maybe,” was all Nick offered. He had gotten in the habit of turning on their frequency, the one they had agreed to use to reach each other. The problem with shortwave, unlike telephones or email, was that both parties had to be present and on the same frequency to communicate. That took some preplanning or a bit of luck. Nick didn’t believe in luck, and ever since he’d made that fateful journey back to Pete’s village last spring during the thaw, this had become their default frequency. If he wasn’t actively scanning the bands for reports from around the globe, it stayed on this frequency, her frequency.
“But it’s not Sunday, and it’s nowhere close to noon yet,” Jimmy offered.
“Yeah, I know.”
They ate in silence until the toaster sounded. Nick jumped; he’d forgotten all about it, and it must have been set too long because he could tell it was burnt.
“Oh, well,” he said retrieving the two blackened pieces. “Burnt toast is better than no toast.” He tossed Jimmy’s piece down like he had the steak. It was like how you would throw food to a dog who you were afraid might bite your hand by mistake. They both loved doing that to each other. They were wild. They were dangerous men. And that’s how they should be treated.
“How much bread’s left?” Jimmy asked as he crunched his toast.
“Half-dozen loaves in the deep freeze,” Nick answered.
“Even if we limit ourselves to two pieces a day—that won’t last a year, will it?”
Nick shook his head. It was realities like these that dampened his spirits. If only he could live completely in the moment. Everything right now was fine. Sure, he wanted things, he wanted to improve their condition. But he wanted to have untainted moments of happiness too. What was wrong with that? he asked himself.
“What about carrots?” Jimmy continued. “We’ve got a bunch of bags of those, don’t we?”
A year ago, Nick wouldn’t have dreamed either of them would ever care how many vegetables were in their freezer. Now they both were obsessed with the scarce commodity.
“I think we’re good for a while on those,” Nick answered. Then a lightbulb went off. “Hey, we don’t have to worry about bread.” He waited for Jimmy to connect the dots.
“The wheat seeds?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah. We can do just like Pete’s village was going to do with what I brought them: grind it up into flour.”
“Well, I guess, but…” Jimmy’s face said it all. Suddenly, that strong fearless warrior was reduced to childish weakness when faced with doing what he considered to be painfully dull work. “How would we grind them? I mean, we don’t have tools for that, do we? Maybe we could trade with the villagers, let them grind it for us in exchange for more seed.”
Nick gave his brother a dubious look. “We’re not going to ask them to grind it for us, not unless we’ve given it our best try anyway. Besides, we can’t even reach them for nine or ten months of the year. One-hundred and eighty miles is too far to walk in the snow. Who’s going to grind your flour in the winter?”
Jimmy waved his hands. “Okay, okay. I get it.” He took another bite of toast as if he was savoring the last of it. “I guess we ought to tell them about the vault,” he finally added.
Nick had hoped they wouldn’t go there again, not today. His meal had already been tarnished with grim realities of their food stores. Revisiting this topic could ruin it altogether.
“I mean, didn’t they question you when you brought them the grain?” Jimmy added. “Where would someone get two fifty-five-gallon drums of wheat?”
“Not really,” Nick answered truthfully. “I already told you this. I told them we found it, which is the truth. They don’t have to know more.”
“Yeah, but if we’re going to keep this up—some day it’s going to be awfully embarrassing to admit we have thousands of pounds of seed back there, especially if they half-starve this winter.”
“We’ve been over this,” Nick said. “Now’s not the time to tell. We just established good relations with them. I had to make amends after what you did up there,” Nick said.
That was all it took. A little bit of old-Jimmy, the troubled immature kid, resurfaced. Nick could see it on his face.
“I’m not proud of what I did,” Jimmy admitted. “But I’m not that person anymore.”
“I know,” Nick said. “All I’m saying is, it’s too soon to blab around about these seed stores. We thought the crazies would all be gone by now, and they aren’t. We aren’t out of the woods just yet.” He paused, waiting until Jimmy looked up. “Jimmy, you’re the only one I trust.”
Nick could see the change happen in Jimmy’s face. First it was in his eyes, a glimmer of light emerging. Then Jimmy’s puckered frown turned up into a half-grin before saying, “Now who’s the big Nancy?”
CHAPTER 3
OUTSIDE. MIDAFTERNOON. EARLY August. Nick was alone. This wasn’t perfection, but it felt pretty close. Alaska had its drawbacks, for sure: eternal night of winter and bone-shattering cold to name a couple. But just like Pete and the village elders had said, nature seemed to seek a balance. And it was during this late summer season that nature seemed to do just that; the days were jam packed with warm, glorious light, and Nick knew—he’d had it ingrained into him at school—that it was during this window of time that people synthesized their year’s supply of vitamin D with the help of UV-B rays.
The long days and intense light were also the reason Alaska held some of the world records for largest garden vegetables. It was usually the melons and pumpkins that grew into the mammoth category. Nick was hoping for success on a fraction of that scale.
After having slept-off the previous night’s living nightmare, Nick was in the mood for something less dangerous. Something more grounding, literally. He was in his first-year garden out in front of the research lab, one that he and Jimmy had dug by hand. It was close enough to the vault to make it convenient to tend but far enough down the gentle slope that, when it needed watering, they didn’t mind carrying buckets from the little creek at the bottom of the valley.
Now, he sat between rows of potatoes, examining their wonderfully exuberant growth. He hoped there was as much under the ground as there was above. The thigh-high, lush green plants were covered by little white flowers that were only now wilting, leaving marble-sized potato seeds in their place.
Back in Fairbanks, Nick would have been intrigued by the plant’s behavior. He’d never noticed the potato seed before and didn’t know why people didn’t use the seeds for planting. As little gardening as he’d done, he knew that everyone cut actual potato roots into pieces—each piece having an eye—and planted those.
Today, the flowers made him question whether the potatoes had developed enough. Did they make flowers, then start forming roots? He couldn’t remember, but he thought that might be right. The only time he’d helped garden was when he was very young, back when Grandpa Joe was alive. Nick had helped him with a little garden, and Grandpa Joe had tried to teach him every step of the way. But like most children, Nick hadn’t listened carefully, and he certainly hadn’t retained much of what he had heard.
He glanced over at the neighboring row of spinach. Most of it was stems and solitary large leaves here and there. He had just harvested several Ziploc bags of the stuff and had put it away in the freezer. That had been a success, at least. And even with the first cool snap that could come any day now, the spinach would continue producing. Or so he hoped.
Nick looked back a
t the vault, at the bullhorn shaped PA speaker mounted above the door. Unlike the van’s roof-mounted speaker, the vault’s PA was all original, unmodified by the boys. And only after a few days of twisting knobs, Nick and Jimmy had figured out how to blast their shortwave feed outside. He had it tuned to the default, Pete’s frequency.
Nick looked up at the crystal clear, blue sky, which wasn’t really ideal for shortwave transmissions. Better were cloudy days when the signals could bounce back and forth from ground to clouds, traveling across the globe. But one-hundred and eighty miles wasn’t far to transmit, he decided. And Pete’s village was on a small mountain, which improved line-of-sight and reduced the need for ionospheric bounce.
Nick turned back to his handheld radio, the one sitting on the ground beside him. That was his connection to Jimmy who had never developed a green thumb. Nick hadn’t either really, but he had tried. Jimmy, on the other hand, had zero interest in gardening, not unless there was absolutely nothing left to do. Nick wondered if it was because of all the teasing Jimmy had received, all the times Nick had called him a sissy. Maybe Jimmy thought gardening was for girls or something.
Jimmy was off now on what he called a scouting expedition—Nick called it a walk. But they both agreed it was a reasonable use of Jimmy’s time. If they were to live here long term, or at least for several more years, they needed to know their surroundings, the lay of the land, and not just those places they could easily reach by car. The summer days promised to last forever, but they both knew they had only a short window of time before they would be back under the ice and snow. Nothing in this world lasts forever.
Nick was stalling, and he knew it. It felt good being still, letting his shirtless back absorb the sun’s rays, letting his mind skip from one association to another. But he was avoiding the task at hand—not because it was work, but because he was afraid. It was time to pull up potato plants and see what lay underground. He could wait longer, but the calendar told him frost could come any day. If the potatoes were going to produce, they would have done so by now.
As if tricking himself into action, Nick turned quickly and grabbed a nearby plant at its base. He imagined he had the plant by the throat, that if he was merciless enough, the poor defenseless plants would have no choice but to give him what he wanted. Grow roots or this one gets it!
Then he pulled up slowly. The smell of dark, rich soil filled his nostrils, scent somehow traveling faster than sight. Large clumps of earth clung to the roots; like at the end of a summertime play date, these subterranean friends were unwilling to part. He grabbed the soil with his left hand and shook free the dirt that now felt more like mud.
He didn’t see potatoes. He kept clearing wet dirt from the root ball. Aha! He’d found one. But seconds later, he realized it was the nasty, rotten piece of cut potato he had planted back in June.
Nothing.
He cast the plant aside and dove into the fresh earth with both hands, now desperate to find some reward for his efforts. After much searching, he found two small potatoes the size of the rubber bouncy balls he used to get out of the machine for a quarter at Wally’s. He also found one tiny, marble-sized potato.
Was that it? That couldn’t be all of it, he thought. If they were all this way, then this was a complete bust. Not only that, the boys could have eaten those June spuds instead of planting them. Nick had believed potatoes were easy to grow and high yielding. Yukon Golds were famous for growing in the North, but apparently, growing four-hundred miles north of Fairbanks was too much to ask from the humble potato.
His injured ego glanced back at the spinach, their one success. That wasn’t food, he thought, that was medicine. Vitamins even. He started to dig deeper in his growing hole in the ground, hoping against hope that the potatoes were there, that they were just deep down, but the second his hands hit the harder, untilled soil he heard the sound of a shortwave transmission.
“Nick, can you hear me? We need help.”
CHAPTER 4
“WHAT DO YOU mean you’re being attacked? By who?” Nick pleaded over the radio. He was inside now.
“I don’t know who they are. They just started attacking us,” Lusa said. “Nick, tell me what to do.”
Nick’s mind raced for an answer, but all he had were questions. “Are they crazies? How many of them are there?”
“I don’t know. Lots. More of them than us.”
Nick knew she had to be in the building next to the radio tower. Maybe she could hide there. If they were crazies, they may not look inside. But then he remembered she must be running the generators to be able to transmit, which meant she was making a lot of noise, one thing they were sure to notice.
Nick wanted to rush to her rescue, but her village was a half-day’s drive from Deadhorse. Still, he had to do something.
“Where’s your dad?” he asked.
“He’s not . . . Nick, they’re coming.” Her voice rose high and shrill, almost a scream. “Nick, what do I do?” He heard a thud. “Nick!”
“Lusa!” he shouted. “Are you there?” But he knew the answer. There had been an audible click, the sound of her signal cutting off. She was gone. Maybe forever.
Nick’s heart pounded, like it was going to jump out of his chest. His mind twisted, scattered between looking for answers, a way to help, and with imagining what was happening at the village. What was happening to Lusa?
She could be dead. Or worse.
He stood up, sickened by the thought. He grabbed the handheld radio and called for Jimmy.
“Yellow,” came his brother’s casual response.
“Jimmy, listen carefully. I’ve got to go to Pete’s village. They’re being attacked. Where are you?”
“Um…several klicks out,” Jimmy answered.
Nick knew that meant it would take Jimmy at least an hour to get home. He didn’t have an hour.
“I’ve got to go, Jimmy. I’ll radio you when I get to Pete’s village and let you know what’s going on. Come home and stay by the radio until you hear from me. Okay?”
There was a pause, and Nick knew Jimmy didn’t like the plan, that he didn’t want his brother off on his own. Finally, Jimmy said, “Yeah. Okay. Nick, stay alive, will ya?”
NICK HAD THOUGHT about taking another vehicle. The boys had salvaged several they had found in and around Deadhorse. Some would go faster, Nick had thought, but in the end the van was already packed with gear and ammo and extra fuel. So, he had taken old faithful and hoped and prayed the sluggish two-tone Dodge would make one more cross-country trek.
He’d had the forethought to punch his odometer when he’d climbed behind the wheel. At least he knew how far to go. Despite maxing out the tired V-8, this was the longest one-hundred eighty miles he’d ever driven. It usually took a solid three hours to get down the Dalton, but the trip today had taken an eternity.
It seemed to Nick that time really was relative, but not to the speed of light; time moved slowly or quickly based on the speed of thought. Just like how ten minutes would zip by when he used to hit the snooze button on his alarm clock, a groggy mind falls forward in time. But Nick’s mind was fever-pitched, traveling a million miles a second. And time seemed to stand still.
He had mapped out every possibility, every explanation he could muster for who or what would have attacked the village, why, and whether or not Lusa was still alive. Elaborate fantasies of her escaping, or successfully fighting back, or being rescued by someone else had filled his mind. And ultimately, they were just that: fantasies. Something to occupy his mind so that more grim, realistic thoughts of what actually had happened or was happening wouldn’t overtake him. Did the truth always set you free? He didn’t think so. Not now.
He watched the odometer click over, and Nick looked up, double-checking that his surroundings matched his memory. When they did, he stomped the van’s brakes and pulled over hard to the left, the wake-up strips rumbling violently beneath him as if he’d landed a fighter jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
Nick reached the bottom of the valley and crept up to the pipeline and found the markings he’d left for just this purpose the last time he’d come this way. Once you’ve seen one section of the pipeline, you’ve seen them all. At least he was in the right place now. The hard part to navigate, he knew, was through the woods.
He aligned himself east, perpendicular to the pipeline, then an additional eighth-turn south. He now realized his careful positioning wasn’t necessary; a dark billowing cloud of smoke rose from the mountain where Pete’s village was. Nick’s heart sank. That was no cook fire.
Nick hurried onward into the tree line, trying as best he could to keep his bearings. He was going uphill; that much he was sure of. And every few moments, there was a break in the canopy and he saw the smoke again. Each time, it seemed to have grown larger, more monstrous than before.
Finally, he reached the little stream he recognized. Nick turned left and followed the subtle trail. The woods thinned, and he knew he was getting close. He imagined seeing Lusa break from behind a tree at any moment or a group of kids come running. Instead, there was silence. Not a bird. Not a cricket. Just the soft crunch of pine needles under foot.
After the trail turned right again, he recognized the clearing that he had so oft admired, except this time it was bathed in red and black: the edge of the woods near the village was on fire, and the village—what was left of it—looked singed and beset by ashes.
