The Long Summer

by Rod Rayborne

  "What kinds of 'external stimuli' are you talking about, Ensign?"

  "Well, in the case of global warming, injections of carbon, for instance. Ever notice how hot it gets in a car if the windows are rolled up on a summer afternoon? Putting carbon into the atmosphere is the same. It holds onto the heat from the sun instead of letting it dissipate back out into space like it used to.

  "Or wrapping yourself in a blanket on a cold winters night. That blanket will keep you warm even when it's cold outside. Carbon in the atmosphere is a blanket we've thrown around the Earth. An ever thickening blanket."

  "You're not listening, Ensign. It's not getting hotter. It's getting colder."

  "Because the blasts injected something else into the atmosphere as well. Smoke."

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "Sorry, but I do. It's something of an interest of mine. The climate is getting colder because the nukes threw smoke into the atmosphere. While carbon traps in the heat from the sun, smoke blocks it. More, the smoke will have risen into the stratosphere, high above the clouds. Too high to be rained out of the air. So it can stay there blocking the warmth of the sun for years, even decades. That's why the Earth grows colder after a major volcanic event.

  "Remember the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines back in the 90's? The explosion from that one eruption put enough smoke into the atmosphere to cool the Earth by a degree for a couple of years. All the nukes we've exploded in the last few days must have thrown much more smoke into the atmosphere than a single volcano would."

  "You just said yourself the volcano cooled the Earth by one degree. I think we can survive a degree of cooling."

  "Like I said, that one degree came from one eruption. We've essentially thrown as much smoke up there as many eruptions would. The hits we've taken in this country alone are about what we could expect from twenty-three volcanic eruptions. Scientists say only five degrees difference would be enough to trigger an ice age."

  "You're embarrassing yourself. First you said the shit we've put into the sky is causing the Earth to warm. Now your saying it's causing the Earth to cool. You can't have it both ways."

  "Carbon passes the radiation from the sun and holds it in. Smoke blocks it. It makes perfect sense."

  Lowry stared at the man for a moment and then turned towards the Watch Commander.

  "Any of that ring a bell with you? With any of you?" he called out from his place at the central station. There were a few nods of assent. Lowry frowned, swallowing hard. He turned back to the Ensign.

  "Let's say for the sake of argument that you were right. I'm not saying I believe you, but let's just say. What would the prognosis be?"

  "Like a volcano, the smoke was thrown 50 miles straight up. Too high to be rained out, as I said. That could give us months maybe years of darkness, particularly in the hemisphere were the bombs fell. No sun means no photosynthesis. Without that, plants will die. Plants we rely on for food. What the bombs began, starvation and cold will finish. Scientists call it a Nuclear Winter."

  Lowry stared at the man for an uncomfortable minute. The room was quiet, every face turned in his direction. Then a voice called out.

  "We lost Omaha."

  Stone faced, Lowry walked out of the room.

  Chapter Seventy Five

  T hey'd been driving in silence for over an hour, Rabbit firmly ensconced between Hershel and Molly. At National City, Hershel had slowed when he spotted a mattress store. It was deserted now, the glass doors hanging open, the crowds concentrating on what remained of canned goods in the chain stores instead. While Rabbit waited in the truck with Molly, he gathered several blankets from the demo beds spread around the room. Then looking in the back, he took a set of basic tools and two rolls of duct tape. He limped back out to the truck in the blizzard, his thigh throbbing and pushed several of the blankets and a quilt through the missing rear window.

  Molly hurriedly pulled the blankets around Rabbit and herself. Meanwhile Hershel folded one blanket into quarters and duct taped it as best he could over the gap. He used all the tape that was left on one roll and then climbed back into the cab and taped it from that side using the other roll. The seal between them and the cold outside was anything but perfect but it helped.

  When he got back into the cab, he saw Molly looking at his wounded thigh.

  "It's ok," he said with a smile. "The bullet passed through. Just hurts a bit is all."

  Molly looked at him a moment longer and nodded. She touched his thigh gently then dropping her gaze, wrapping her arms around Rabbit again.

  Hershel turned the truck towards the frontage road, driving slowly around the wandering crowds of people. He passed three gas stations, each full of vehicles where people were helping themselves to the remaining reserves via hand pumps and garden hoses.

  At the forth station, a Shell, Hershel slid into place behind a seventies era station wagon, packed with supplies and laughing children. School was out. At least some had reason to celebrate.

  At the pumps, pandemonium reigned, cars and trucks backed up out into the street. Pedestrians walked between the vehicles, asking for rides or food. Hershel watched two men approach a truck at another island. While one of them distracted the driver as he was pumping gas, the other snuck up to the rear of the vehicle, reached in and took out a flat of canned food. He turned and walked away while the first man waved goodbye to the driver and followed him. Nearby, a double tanker was unloading gasoline into the underground tanks.

  Taped to a pillar, a large cardboard sign announced, No Diesel!! A loud gas generator was thrumming beneath one open bay door and the station owner was assisting drivers with free fuel. He was giving away five gallons per vehicle only but the crowds were such that he couldn't keep track of the amounts people were taking. It was unsurprising then that most of the drivers were filling up their tanks, some even including plastic fuel containers.

  Hershel jumped down from the truck, wincing when his thigh seized up. Ignoring the pain, he grabbed the gas nozzle. He unscrewed the chrome gas cap and pushed the nozzle in. The harried owner ran from pump to pump, making sure that everything was working. When he got to Hershel, he looked in the driver's side window. Molly, holding Rabbit, looked back at him and mouthed the words thank you. He squeezed Hershel shoulder and said in a low voice to fill up. Hershel barely had time to thank him when he was gone to the next pump.

  While the gas was pumping, Hershel cracked the door open and asked Molly if she needed to use the bathroom. She nodded and gently laying Rabbit on the seat with her load of blankets, slid out of the truck, one of the blankets over her shoulders and joined the other women, similarly attired. While she was gone, Hershel finished filling the truck. When the owner came back around, Hershel was waiting there with his wallet out and cash in his hand. He offered the man three twenties. The man refused.

  "You good?" the man asked. Hershel nodded and said, "She's just waiting for the bathroom."

  "Could I ask you to pull over there to wait for her?" he pointed to the other end of the station near the bathrooms. Hershel agreed and then took the man's hand.

  "It's a good thing you're doing, Jorge," he said, reading the tag on the man's greasy jacket. "Thank you."

  "It's been like this the last three days, he replied. "We just keep bringing it and they just keep coming."

  Hershel climbed back into the truck and eased next to the west wall of the station. The women's bathroom was a study in efficiency as the line moved forward steadily and quickly. Molly was second from the front by the time Hershel stopped. She glanced at him tiredly and gave a half wave that he returned. Five minutes later, she was back and asking him if he was going to go. He shook his head.

  "Somewhere along the way. Let's go."

  They were on the road again, the gas needle slowing drifting to full. As soon as he got onto the freeway, he gunned it, wheeling around the other vehicles when he could. The traffic ahead slowed in places to a crawl, some cars trying to weave
between lanes and getting stuck. Hershel had stayed in the last lane on the right so that he could exit the freeway if he needed to and have a little extra room to maneuver between the lane and the embankment. The world was turning white but was still crowded with people walking, lost beneath mounds of blankets.

  They drove without speaking for another hour. The truck heater hummed quietly, filling the cab with a rosy warmth. Still, Hershel shivered, feeling the heat whisked away along his neck where one bit of blanket had detached and flapped in the wind..

  Unexpectedly, Molly took his right hand and pulled it beneath the blankets, pushing it between warm thighs. He pulled it back then.

  "It ain't like that, Molly," he said quietly.

  "No, it's not," she agreed. Then she took his hand again. He looked at her a moment and smiled.

  By noon, they were within a half-mile of the border. Visibility was minimal in the blizzard. He could just make out the slightly darker forms of other vehicles stopped in the road in front of them. At least a dozen lanes. When they didn't move, Hershel passed to the right. Approaching the border, he drove slowly, nervous about crossing into another country. He didn't know if the Mexican government was requiring passports. He didn't have one.

  When he reached the guardhouses, he realized they were empty. Somewhere to the right, he saw one muted figure hunched forward, moving slowly through the driving sleet.

  They crossed into Mexico without incident. Once they were on the road again, he pushed forward along empty streets. He supposed the border guards had done the same days before, abandoning their posts and moving south as well.

  Molly lay against him, Rabbit sandwiched between. They were all cocooned in their own blankets. Then a small hand fell on his arm.

  Chapter Seventy Six

  B y the time they reached Chula Vista, the blizzard had begun in earnest. Temperatures had dropped to 8° and falling. Mika and the men had long since donned the thermals, gloves and hoods they'd packed in their bug out bags. They looked like members of a deep Antarctic expeditionary party. Still despite this, they shivered from the biting cold.

  Their southward progress had slowed appreciably. James had taken the lead from Nate who'd fallen back to help Aaron. The wound Aaron had sustained from the gunshot to his right shoulder had been minor but he had wrenched that arm when he had fallen. Twisting as he had gone down, his left leg caught in the front tire's spokes, he had thrown out the arm to brace himself. On the road ice, laced as it was with the thin ever-present layer of oil that covers every street, his arm twisted around and behind him, partially dislocating his shoulder.

  The pain had become excruciating. Mika had made a sling with an extra shirt from his pack so that now he was trying to pedal his bike on the ice single handedly. The going had slowed to less than half what it had been before. Aaron had urged the others to go on without him, promising them that he would catch up with them at the border but none of them believed that would be happening. They'd all agreed to stay with him as long as it took.

  They passed hundreds of unprepared people who'd died in the cold, barely recognizable as human beings beneath their shrouds of white. Frozen in place, they'd grown so numerous, they now represented new obstacles for them to maneuver around. The blizzard was also making negotiating the slippery streets even more difficult, creating white out conditions and harsh winds. Color and definition was gone from the world now, replaced by human sized stalagmites of snow. Too, the scene was rapidly growing darker as the soot in the atmosphere drifting from the west gathered against the Coast Ranges.

  Some miles further on, the blizzard had grown more violent. Mika was the only one of them who had a scarf to wrap around her face and this she forced Aaron to wear. The sound of the storm was so loud, she could barely hear Aaron's objections over it. As soon as she removed it from her own face, the cold bit down even harder and she gasped. Still, she kept him from seeing it, smiling at him even as her teeth began to chatter. Aaron's nose, like those of the others, was scarlet, well on its way to frostbite. After wrapping the cloth around his head, she stood near him and breathed deeply, exhaling warm air into the soft wool. He took her hand and smiled.

  "A day late," he shouted above the gale.

  She nodded. She looked at the other men who had gathered near them, as much to garner warmth from their nearness to other warm bodies as to hear whatever she had to say. Their faces, like Aaron's, like hers would soon be, was tinted with blue.

  Mika looked from one to the other, seeking understanding, seeking patience and finding it.

  "We need to find some shelter until the storm passes,"

  she said. They each nodded solemnly, looking between themselves and back at her.

  "Anything nearby that would suit?" She shouted again.

  James said, "I think there's a hotel a few blocks or so ahead. Can't remember what. Big. Let's try for that." It was as much a question as a plea. Mika stood in the middle of the huddle. She wrapped her arms around the men.

  "I love you all," she shouted above the gale.

  "Oh sure, now you tell us," James shouted back, grinning, his chin quivering, lips cracked and bleeding. Mika looked at him, a warm tear slipping down her cheek, leaving a thin trail that froze a second later. Then, resolute, she pulled off her pack and took out the short rope she'd kept there.

  "Better hoof it from here on," she said. She handed one end of the rope to James and the other men. Then she took the lead.

  "Don't let go. Well get there." She held a compass in her hand and as one, they began the walk up the next ramp.

  An hour, maybe two later, they huddled beneath a lamppost. The world was now entirely white, no other sign, no corner mailbox, no bench or car fender or anything else farther away than a faded foot or two distant could be seen. Imagined, not seen. She held her compass up close so that she could see the needle in the flurry. It had frozen in place. She tapped it a few times and it swung free again. They were still on track, perhaps too south of where she had thought they should be. She looked at the others but they only shook their heads. She turned to James.

  "To the right maybe. I can't be sure. I'm sorry." His voice shook so much, it was difficult to understand him at all. He looked at her face, buried in her parka. He saw blue, clear warm eyes peering at him questioningly. Pleading with him to show them the way to go, to give them hope. He looked at her and then at the rest of the men. Then he pointed confidentially to the east. He saw hopelessness on their faces, fear and exhaustion. They were shivering and unrecognizable, faces swollen, chaffing. The time was short. If they didn't find something soon, they were finished. He gave them all a reassuring smile.

  "We're almost there. I remember now. Ten minutes." His voice shook, every word, every puffed breath, an agony of frozen resignation he struggled to conceal.

  The others nodded tiredly, eyes half closed. Then they set out, James taking the lead, Mika falling in behind him, stumbling through the dark. They held onto the rope they shared between them.

  An hour or so later they walked out onto a broad avenue though they couldn't see its edges or any other defining characteristics. Aaron had fallen somewhere. Nate was gone too. Probably trying to help him. It was several minutes before the others realized they were gone. They turned to backtrack in an effort to find him, but Mika shook her head, to weak to speak and turned away. They continued on. The temperature had fallen to 30 below zero now. The wind tore at them mercilessly, slicing knife like along the gaps in their clothing, leaving razor thin cuts behind that froze before they had a chance to bleed.

  They stopped then in a world without definition, a world of shadowed white and cold, of wind and isolation. To the left, they could just make out a darker area, a gray cold that beckoned to them to sit and rest, to collect their thoughts and breathe.

  As one, they fought their way towards it, those few who were left. It was a double doorway. Weakly Mika pushed against the door with hands she could no longer feel, could barely lift. Hands that were turni
ng black around the edges. The doors resisted her efforts. Her hands slipped downward and she followed them to the ground.

  The others followed her there as well. They were no longer cold. Thank God for little blessings. Huddled, they looked out at their alien world. An ice planet. James looked back at the glass doors. On them were etched the words, Air and Space Museum, Balboa Park. A poster was taped on the inside. Film showing today. Our Changing Climate: Why the Earth is getting hotter.

  James began to laugh.

  Chapter Seventy Seven

  T he small sandwich sign was small and poorly written. The script was ill-defined, green on white with delicate pink roses fluting along the edges in a vine. Hours, 12 noon to 4 p.m. Contessa's Cantina.

  Before the wide entrance to the small restaurant was a half whiskey barrel. In it, pink geraniums grew amidst deep green scalloped shaped leaves that drooped over the sides of the barrel. Wild perfume drifted into the air around it, a subtle but spectacular offering to the world.

  Above it all, a sky of deepest blue smiled down, warmth tingling along Bennett's cheeks, reddening his nose. His belly was full of tamales, an unopened bottle of warm beer resting ham fisted in his fingers. He slipped the bottle into the side pocket of his tattered tuxedo and sat astride his bicycle. A woman came out wiping her hands on a greasy towel tucked into the waist wrap of her floral dress.

  Bennett had been her only customer in days, everyone else having gone south. He had long since jettisoned much of the gear he'd brought with him to lighten his load. The Army Survival Guide was the first to go followed by the rope and duct tape. Then went the metal box used to hold the first aid supplies. These he simply dumped into his pack. Last to go was the Los Angeles map, folded and forgotten in his back pocket. This he'd dropped in a waste can when he crossed the border.