by Mark Kelly
“Do you think it’s still snowing?” she asked, hoping more than anything it wasn’t so she could leave.
“How would I know? I haven’t been outside yet,” Alisha said as she opened the cabin door.
“Wow!”
Saanvi stared wide-eyed at the wall of snow filling the doorway. It was almost as high as Alisha’s chest and perfectly smooth. It looked impenetrable. She’d never seen anything like it before.
“That’s insane…how can there be that much snow?”
Alisha shrugged, but even she seemed stunned. “It’s just a snow drift. The wind must have blown the snow off the meadow last night.”
It’s incredible, Saanvi thought, her eyes riveted on the white mass. She’d seen snow before, but whenever it snowed in London, it never lasted more than a few hours, or maybe a day at the most. This was like something out of the pictures she’d seen of Antarctica.
“How are we ever going to get out of the cabin?” she asked Alisha.
“Oh, I don’t know. How about like this?” Alisha said, grabbing a pail from a hook on the wall and using it to scoop up a chunk of snow. She paused, glanced around the cabin, and then dumped the snow into a large pot on the wood stove.
“Won’t that take all day?”
“Why would it take all day?”
“Melting the snow, I mean—and what are you going to do with all the water?”
The corners of Alisha’s mouth turned up in a smile. Saanvi felt her cheeks flush as she realized she had misunderstood what Alisha intended to do. “I’m such a git. You’re not going to melt all the snow, are you?”
“No, that’s for breakfast.”
Saanvi giggled and squeezed her knees together inside her sleeping bag. “I can’t laugh. I have to pee so badly.”
Alisha smiled mischievously and pointed to the corner opposite the wood stove. “You can always go there.”
Curious, Saanvi turned to look. She gaped in horror when she saw the white five-gallon pail with a toilet seat attached to its top. “Seriously? That’s where you go?”
Alisha laughed and shook her head. “No, there’s an outhouse behind the cabin. The pail is for emergencies—like this, I guess. It was Daphne’s idea.”
There was an awkward pause as Alisha turned away and kicked at the snow drift blocking the door. “I hope she’s okay.”
So do I, Saanvi thought, feeling a twinge of guilt. She wiggled out of her sleeping bag. “I think we should start digging because there’s no way I’m going to sit on a pail to take a pee. What can I do to help?”
Alisha pointed at the shovel leaning against the wall next to the door. “How about you dig, and I’ll cart the snow outside?”
They took a little over an hour to dig themselves out. After they finished, Alisha returned to the cabin to make breakfast, leaving Saanvi alone. Exhausted and sweaty, Saanvi plopped down in the deep snow, letting it cradle her while she leaned back and rested.
She held out her hand and watched the snowflakes flutter down onto her glove. It wasn’t snowing as hard as yesterday, but still hard enough she knew she wouldn’t be leaving today.
And she still hadn’t told Alisha.
Not at all in a hurry to get it over with, she pushed herself up out of the snow, and headed back into the cabin.
“Mademoiselle, your timing is perfect,” Alisha said with a flourish as Saanvi stepped inside. “This morning we are serving a cheese & vegetable omelet with a side of hash-browns and a cinnamon scone for dessert.”
“I want to go home,” Saanvi blurted. “I was going to tell you last night, but I was so tired.”
Alisha’s eyes flashed with anger. She placed the plate she was holding on the table and raised her voice. “Saanvi, when we were standing at the fence, I asked you if you were sure you wanted to come with me, and you told me over and over again that you did. I should have listened to Daphne. She was right. This is no place for a child.”
“I’m sorry,” Saanvi said through the lump in her throat. “I thought I wanted to live with you, but it’s too much. It’s too different here. And I’m not a child, I’m almost sixteen.”
“Of course it’s different here. This isn’t the base. We don’t have everything they do. You knew that when we left. I don’t understand what you were thinking.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything except how much I hate it there.”
“Why do you hate it so much?”
“I told you already. They never let me do anything and everyone treats me like a child. Even you called me a child.”
Alisha sighed. “That was wrong of me. I know you aren’t a child and I shouldn’t have called you one, but did you ever think they treat you the way they do because they care about you?”
“They treat me like that because they can use me to make people better.”
The anger in Alisha’s voice returned. “When you talk like that, you sound like a spoiled little girl who deserves to be treated like a child.”
“Well, it’s true,” Saanvi pouted.
Alisha gave her an exasperated look. “No, it’s not and you aren’t being fair. It’s a fact of life. It doesn’t matter who or what you are. When people think you’re special, they always treat you differently.”
Special.
Somehow out here, away from the base, it didn’t sound so bad. “Does that mean you think I’m special?”
Alisha rolled her eyes. “Now you’re being silly. You know as well as I do that you are. And not just because you’re immune. You’ve always been nice to me when we talked by the fence. I think you’re a good person.”
Saanvi felt the blood rush to her face. Embarrassed by her behaviour, she tried to explain. “Sometimes, I feel like an animal in a cage. I’m lonely and I’m not allowed to go anywhere. Emma doesn’t have a babysitter. She can leave the base and go into town to see her boyfriend whenever she wants. Professor Simmons even took her on a scavenging trip. She gets to do everything while I’m locked up.”
“Is that what this is about? Are you jealous of your friend Emma?”
“No!”
Alisha smiled. “You said that pretty quickly. Are you sure?”
Saanvi began to protest, then stopped as she thought about it. She wasn’t jealous of Emma. She was envious. “I just want things to be normal again.”
Alisha shook her head and spoke softly. “Saanvi, things will never be normal again. This is the world we live in now. Whatever you have, you need to make the best of it. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“And by the way, I’m not angry. If you want to go back to the base, I’ll make sure you get there safely. Do you?”
“I do. At least Daphne will be happy.”
Alisha pressed her lips together. Her voice quaked with emotion. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Are you worried about her?”
“Yes.”
37
You can do this
Saanvi woke to the sound of wood burning and felt waves of heat emanating from the stove. She stretched inside her sleeping bag and rolled over to see what Alisha was doing.
Alisha’s mattress was empty and her sleeping bag neatly folded in a pile. Guessing Alisha had gone to fetch water, Saanvi closed her eyes and fell back asleep. As she drifted off, she remembered today would be a good day; today, she was going home.
When she woke the second time, the crackle and pop of the fire was gone and there was a coolness in the air. She pushed her sleeping bag down around her waist and sat upright. Her pulse quickened when she saw the pile of clothing neatly folded in two tidy stacks at the bottom of Alisha’s mattress. She recognized the purple and white sweater on top. It was hers, but she had never unpacked her backpack.
She wiggled out of her sleeping bag and searched the cabin, looking for her pack, but it was gone. Panicking, she jumped up and rushed to the cabin door. A small sheet of paper ripped from a spiral steno pad was stuck to the latch.
Saanvi,
* * *
> Good morning…you looked so peaceful sleeping, I didn’t want to wake you. It’s not snowing as heavily today, so I’m going into town to help Daphne with the supplies. I’ll stop at the base and tell the soldiers where you are. Hopefully, they’ll pity us and give us a ride back to the cabin when they come to get you. It sure would beat walking.
* * *
See you later (probably around noon).
* * *
Alisha
* * *
PS. I filled the water jug and left wood by the stove. Put a couple of logs in the stove every hour or two and the cabin will stay warm. If you’re hungry, help yourself to the food. Also, there are books in one of the storage bins if you get bored.
* * *
PSS. Hope you don’t mind, I borrowed your backpack. It’s bigger than mine and easier to carry.
* * *
~Alisha
The note still in her hand, Saanvi opened the cabin door and peered outside. A fresh set of footprints, already partially covered by the falling snow, crossed the meadow in a direction she assumed led to the road. For an instant, she debated putting on her coat and going after Alisha, but afraid she would get lost, she decided not too. Besides, the soldiers would come and get her.
Angry Alisha had left without telling her, Saanvi slammed the door shut, crumpled the note into a ball and threw it into the fire. As she watched the paper burst into flames, she realized she was alone. Not alone as in, by herself in her bedroom with the door closed, but alone with no one around for miles and miles. The thought made her dizzy with worry. Stop it, she chided herself. You’re being childish. It’s just for a few hours.
“You can bloody-well do this, Saanvi Chopra,” she said out loud to herself and then giggled nervously. She looked around the cabin, wondering what she should do to keep busy.
She’d start by having breakfast. The food was on a shelf by the stove. Including the rations she had brought with her, she guessed that one person could eat for a week—but she wasn’t going to be here that long and Alisha and Daphne were bringing more food.
Grabbing a ration pack from the shelf, Saanvi read the label and laughed. It was the same as what they had eaten yesterday—a cheese and vegetable omelette—or vomelette as Alisha had called it after taking a bite. That’s like something Emma would have said. Saanvi smiled to herself as she put the ration pack back and took a can of spaghetti instead.
After she finished eating, she sat at the table and thought about what she would do next. She stared at the small stack of logs beside the stove and remembered what Alisha had told her the day before. Next to food and water, wood to burn was the third most precious resource.
Determined to show Alisha and Daphne she wasn’t useless, Saanvi took the orange saw from its spot on the wall and went outside to cut wood.
She knew not to cut the trees that were still standing, and the evergreens with their sticky sap and snow-covered boughs seemed like a bad choice as well, but the dead wood lying on the ground, half-covered in a blanket of snow, was perfect. She went to work, hacking and sawing until her arms ached and small blisters formed on the insides of her fingers.
As the sun moved higher in the sky, the pile of wood on the ground beside her grew at a painfully slow rate. You’re pathetic, she thought, scowling at it. There’s not even enough here for one day. I’ll cut a little bit more, then I’ll go inside.
With renewed energy, she went back to work, stopping only when the blisters on her hands popped and her arms threatened to fall off. She trudged back to the cabin with her stockpile of wood and lay it on the floor next to the stove.
Filled with a contented tiredness from having done something productive, and still wearing her parka, she grabbed a book and lay down on the mattress to rest. Slowly, her eyes closed on their own and she fell asleep.
It was dark when she woke with the book still in her hands. She’d been asleep for so long it was night again. Even through the bulk of her coat, she could feel a chill in the air. The fire in the stove had burned out. She sat up and looked around. It was pitch-black—so dark she couldn’t see anything.
“Hello? Hello…Alisha…Daphne…Are you back?”
The only sound was the creaking of snow-laden tree branches breaking and bending in the howling wind. She guessed the weather had turned bad again and clenched her knees to her chest as a cascade of panicky thoughts ran through her head. Alisha and Daphne had abandoned her. She was going to die alone in the forest.
No, you won’t. Don’t be stupid.
There was food and water in the cabin, and she wouldn’t freeze if she could keep the fire going. But she couldn’t see anything in the dark and she didn’t know where Alisha kept the flashlight—or even if there was a flashlight…or matches…or anything like that.
“Get a grip,” she yelled at herself as she panicked. “It won’t be night forever. The important thing is to stay warm.”
Whimpering, she scrambled around on her knees, blindly searching for Alisha’s sleeping bag. She found it, lay it on top of her own, and curled up beneath the two of them to wait the night out.
The empty grayness of dawn came after a long and sleepless night. When there was enough light to see, Saanvi glanced at the mattress next to hers, hoping to see Alisha on it, but it was empty.
Numb from the cold, she crawled out of her sleeping bag and opened the stove’s cast iron door. She stuck her hand inside. A slight warmth radiated from the charred wood and ash. Excited, she poked at the embers with a stick until an orange flicker appeared. Then she placed broken twigs and pieces of kindling on the ash and blew on it until it sparked into life. Slowly and carefully, she rebuilt the fire, resolving not to let it go out again.
What next?
She climbed to her feet and looked around the cabin. For a moment, she didn’t know what to do and stood in place, letting the heat from the stove slowly thaw her.
Remembering Alisha’s words, she repeated them; first in her head, and then aloud. “Next to food and water, wood to burn was the third most precious resource.”
The raw patches of torn, red skin on the palms of her hands were ample reminder she didn’t need wood. Not immediately anyway, she thought, looking at the stack next to the stove.
And food?
She counted the ration packs and tin cans on the shelf. There was enough for one, maybe two weeks if she only ate one meal a day. Even more, she thought, remembering her grandmother telling her that Gandhi had survived without food for three weeks, and Alisha and Daphne would be back way before then. But she would need water.
She bent down and shook the jug. A thin layer of ice coated the top of the water. If it had been that cold in the cabin, what about the stream? Would it be frozen too? Thinking to go and check, she opened the cabin door.
A blast of icy cold air whipped across her face causing her to flinch and jump back. It was snowing so hard she couldn’t see across the meadow. Her footprints from yesterday were gone. It was like she had never existed. Tears welled up in the corner of her eyes as she shut the door. She was completely alone.
38
No more saline solution
Through the falling snow, Simmons could barely see the outline of the building next to the one they were in. It had been almost a week since Saanvi went missing, and General Leduc had called in all the search parties. Even the big army trucks with their knobby tires and four-wheel-drive transmissions were no match for the immense quantity of snow.
With nothing else to do, Simmons had decided that they might as well get a jump start on producing the spore pills. They worked sixteen hours a day, mostly in silence. Beth and Bennett did the grunt work while he worked the centrifuge. The mood was somber.
“Are you ready for the next batch?” Beth asked, walking around the lab table holding a large flask of semi-solid brownish sludge in her hands.
“Put it here,” he said, clearing a spot on the table.
There was a light tap on the door, and Mei stuck her head in. S
immons looked at her hopefully.
“Any word?”
“No, nothing.”
In the days since Saanvi had gone missing, there had only been a single lead, and that had come on the first day. Two shopkeepers in town had reported trading with a woman named Daphne, who had been seen by the fence talking to Saanvi. The shopkeepers told Leduc’s men that Daphne had filled two backpacks with supplies and complained about doing the work of three.
By the time the soldiers searched the town, she had already disappeared. Everyone assumed she had gone south to meet up with the rest of her friends.
When Mei didn’t move from the doorway, Simmons raised a brow. “Anything else?”
“I have someone here who wants to help.”
“Thanks, but we’re fine. We don’t need any—”
“Tony, I have someone here who wants to help,” Mei repeated sternly. She gave him that look; the look that meant it’s not up for discussion. Then she ushered Emma into the room.
Simmons felt the anger boil up inside him but pushed it aside when he saw Emma’s red eyes.
Her lower lip quivered as she spoke. “I’m sorry, Professor Simmons. I know you’re still mad at me. If I could go back in time, I’d never let Saanvi out of my sight. I was stupid and selfish. Please let me help. I’ll do anything you want. I don’t want to sit around doing nothing because I can’t get her out of my head.” She sniffled once, then lowered her head and started crying.
“She’s been punished enough,” Mei said, mouthing the words to him.
Simmons let out a resigned groan. Deep down inside, he knew he wasn’t being fair to Emma. Yes, she had left Saanvi alone, but it was Saanvi who had decided to leave, and it wasn’t like Emma had helped her.
