Northern Lights: A Scorched Earth Novel

by Boyd Craven III

  Did I mention the water was cold? That’s why we’d been waiting to dive and get all that we could. When the thermometer hit what looked like 78 degrees – which happily had not exploded with the EMP, it’s mercury happily mocking the technology of the world – it was time to go.

  “What are we going to do while we wait on her?” Jordan asked, looking longingly at the lake.

  “I want to build a bigger smoker, maybe make a solar dehydrator too,” I admitted.

  “You know how to do that, or is that something you learned in a book?” Brian asked.

  This time, I did in fact know firsthand. I’d done both in a workshop.

  “I know how to do it, I did it in the prepper camp in the Carolinas last fall,” I told them.

  “Really? So what do we need?”

  “I’d like to build the dehydrator first. Maybe see if we can get the fish even drier, then start on the new smoker. I think we’d be best off by first taking the screens off from the storm windows and making a box fit those,” I said.

  “Wait, then that would let the bugs in,” Jordan was about to cry, I know it.

  “Well, then close the windows,” I told him.

  “Then it’ll get hot,” Brian griped.

  Bunch of pansies.

  “Ok, but we need the screens. Also, we need at least one of those layers of visqueen that’s in the crawlspace,” I told him.

  “What do you have in mind?” Jordan asked.

  The plan was pretty easy. The great thing was it would only use four nails per shelf. We still had a ton of nails left, but there would be no more once we used them up…

  “We drive four poles into the ground,” I told them. “Spaced so we can fit a screen inside of it. We run a piece of wood from front to back and then rest the screens on top of them like an oven rack. Then we wrap the whole thing in plastic to raise the temperature. Cut a hole in the top to let out heat and moisture and voilà.”

  “What’s going to keep the bugs out of it?” Jordan asked.

  I opened my mouth and closed it. The top hole would be a problem, the box I’d made was out of plywood on at least 1 side and the top/bottom. I’d stapled screen material across it. I wouldn’t have that here unless…

  “We’ll lay a screen across the top,” I told him, “where the vent hole goes. Ants might be the only thing we have to worry about, but if we use it on sunny days, the heat should keep them out.”

  “What can you dry out on one of those things?” Brian asked.

  “Just about anything.”

  “And how are we going to do the smoker one?” Jordan asked me. “I mean, we’re probably going to be using up all of the screens.”

  “We’ll make it the same way, except we’ll use some of our natural resources for making the shelf,” I told them.

  “How’s that?” Brian asked.

  “Remember how I asked Tracy to cut the roots from the stalks?” I asked them.

  Realization lit both of their faces and they smiled.

  “Isn’t this sort of crazy?” Jordan asked.

  “What do you mean?” Brian piped in.

  “The world might be at war, but I’m having the time of my life,” he answered.

  “Have the time of your life after you take a swim, you’re ripe,” I said not wanting to get lost in the flow of conversation.

  * * *

  Holding the boat steady wasn’t hard. Usually, the wind made a small chop across the lake, but it was unusually calm and once again I could see straight to the bottom. Tracy and Brian were underwater, using my multi-tool to cut loose a piece of cable. It wasn’t the ideal cutter, but it was what I had handy. I got all the way out in the middle of the lake with everyone, and I realized I’d forgotten to grab my cable cutters. Maybe I could be called a freak for taking some of my trapping supplies and tools, I probably should have packed in more food… but it was what I had on me.

  “Do you think building a bigger snare will be able to take down a moose?” Jordan asked me.

  “Maybe a cow,” I said. “A bull’s antlers would be hard to fit through any sort of hoop.”

  “What about a leg hold type snare?” he asked me.

  I stopped to consider it. I’d used leg hold traps, but every snare I’d ever used was a kill snare. Not because I thought leg holds were unethical, but it was how I learned and, when an animal breaks a snare from its anchor point, it would still fall, often within sight of the tree you anchored the snare from. Luckily I had a small tackle box of parts with me, not much, but I was thankful I’d packed my cam locks.

  “That might actually work,” I admitted. “But I think there’d be a bigger chance of it breaking the anchor and getting away. If I go out for one, I want it down. I want some burgers,” I said.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re losing weight. These two weeks of fish and beans has slimmed you down a little bit, buddy.”

  I looked down, and sure enough, there was a very small difference - but the only way I noticed was because I’d cinched my belt one more notch than the normal worn out one that held up my pants.

  “A little bit, I had a lot to lose, though,” I admitted.

  I watched as a stream of bubbles broke the surface next to the front of the boat, and Tracy came up next to Brian who was holding the end of a frayed cable in one hand and my multi-tool in the other. I took the multi-tool as they took deep breaths and passed me the end of the frayed cable.

  “It should be loose. Just have to reel it in now,” Tracy said with a smile.

  God, she was the devil; how could I have ever married and lost her? Why wasn’t I good enough?

  I started to pull slowly, some tension on the cable. It came slowly and Brian dived to help guide it out easier. We’d all talked about being extra careful of getting cut on the sharp edges of the broken wing and fuselage. I was surprised when I pulled out a section of cable and realized I’d made a dozen loops on the floor and there was more still to come. It wasn’t the 7x7 wire like I usually used, but if I stripped one of the bigger strands out, that would be about the same size as my 7x7 and I could make my kill snare from that and an intact section of cable for my anchor point.

  “I’ll be right back,” Jordan told Tracy and dove deep.

  “I can’t believe this worked,” she said. “You really think you can catch something with all this line?” Tracy asked me.

  “Yeah, I do. I don’t think it’ll be a big deal, but we’ll see,” I admitted.

  “I always hated your hunting and camping stuff, you know… But now it looks like that’s going to save us,” she said.

  “There’s no way I could do all of this on my own,” I told her.

  “Hold on, my turn,” She took a breath and dove as the other two broke the surface. I felt the line tense as Tracy took a hold of it from the bottom and then I felt the slack so I kept reeling in the cable.

  “First aid kit, and I think this little black duffel is either his underwear or the emergency kit,” Brian told me, tossing them into the boat.

  “Anything else of use in there?” I asked them.

  “Fire extinguisher,” Jordan answered.

  “Grab anything not nailed down,” I said, using the cable to keep me over the plane instead of the big oar or motor like I’d planned.

  “You got it,” Brian said and they both dove.

  I could feel it when the end of the cable was released from the plane because the tension on it was gone. I finished reeling it in and felt the back end of the boat dip as I got the loops in a straight line.

  “Little help back here?” Tracy asked.

  She didn’t have the same upper body strength as the rest of us, and I know it must have cost her a lot to ask for help, especially from me. I made my way back slowly and gave her my hands and pulled. She got most of the way up and then put one knee over the edge. She tried to swing her other leg over as she straightened but was off balance. She fell forward, tripping me across an aluminum seat and landed right on top of me. My brea
th left me in one fast whoosh.

  “Oh God, are you ok?” Tracy asked, trying to lever herself off of me.

  I held up my hand to motion just a second to her as my breath came back in a rush.

  “Yeah, it’s just that you knocked the wind out of me,” I said, my voice coming out wheezy.

  “Are you implying I’m fat?” she asked, her eyes suddenly going cloudy.

  “No, just that you knocked the wind out of me. What’d you hit me with, your knee?” I asked, rubbing the sore spot as she finally found her footing and moved back half a step to give me room.

  “My ass,” she said, and her lips were razor thin.

  “Well, your ass knocked the wind out of me, I’m ok now,” I said. “Give me a hand.”

  The combination of falling on the aluminum seat with the small of my back and having Tracy fall on top of me had left me doing nothing more than avoiding death. My lower back was killing me worse than ever, though it had been going away the more and more I swam. Tracy held out a hand and I took it, trying to get to my feet stiffly.

  “So you have a problem with my ass?” she hissed.

  “Never did before,” I said, starting to rise to my feet.

  Funny thing happened, funny for everyone but me. As Tracy was pulling me up, she kept pulling until I found myself going over the side of the boat. The shock of the cold water almost knocked the breath out of me again, and I was only too happy to make it back to the air. I looked up, pissed because I hadn't been implying anything and...

  Laughter? I swam over to the edge of the boat and saw that both Jordan and Brian were working their way in by the transom and everyone was laughing, including Tracy.

  “Lighten up,” she said amidst the giggles, “just because it's the end of the world, it doesn't mean we can't have fun.”

  I thought about splashing her, but she was already wet. Instead, I held onto the side of the boat and pulled my shoes off with one hand and tossed those in. Once Jordan was in and clear, I pulled myself in. I had to give everyone credit, it was a lot harder than they'd made it look. I managed to get in the boat without tipping it, which was a win and took my spot.

  “Why so serious?” Jordan said in a voice reminiscent of the Joker when Heath Ledger played him in the movie.

  “I'm not, I just... If it was anybody else...” I let my words trail off and Tracy's smile faded.

  “Come on man, don't give her grief, she was just playing around,” Brian said, getting serious himself.

  “Oh, it's not that,” I said with a grin, “if it was anybody else I would have tossed you back in the water. Since it's Tracy that'd be too easy. Now I just have to find something else to do... say a snake in her sleeping bag or a spider under her coffee cup...”

  “You wouldn't?!” she said in a loud shrill voice.

  “Oh yes, I'm pretty sure he would,” Jordan said.

  Nefarious plans were coming together in my mind, and no, I decided I wouldn't scare her with a critter or two. She would imagine me doing something worse and it would build until she exploded with worry. In fact, I thought that would be even more fun than the actual prank, the buildup. I grinned evilly.

  “Yeah,” Brian said, “Tom's known for his pranks, hun, you'll just have to see what he comes up with. No matter what it is, it's going to be epic,” he said noting my grin.

  “You're dead to me,” Tracy pointed at her husband.

  “Hey guys, look at that!” Jordan said pointing excitedly.

  Three bears were half a mile from our campsite, pushing at something in the brush. It was the same spot where we'd been dumping the fish offal. We'd decided that since the bears knew where we were, we'd keep dumping in roughly the same spot as an incentive to keep them away from us, the smokers and the dehydrator we'd just built.

  “Momma bear is back,” Brian said, “I wonder what they taste like?”

  “I've never tried bear,” I admitted.

  “I have,” Tracy said, surprising us all, “it was on that wild game dinner at your church. The one your grandpa invited you too.”

  “Oh God, I remember that,” I said, “Yeah, the only ladies there were the church volunteers. I don't think you heard or cared that it was a guy’s thing.”

  “Your grandpa was amused, that's for sure,” Tracy said.

  “What was it like?” Brian asked, obviously uncomfortable with the situation.

  As well as he should have been I guess. He was my buddy, but he was the one who’d brought his wife, my ex-wife, on the trip, where we'd been staying in a small space. We had a shared history, and it kept popping up. Having her come probably saved her life, though, because otherwise she'd have been stuck back in Detroit somewhere alone when the grid went down. From what I'd read, societal collapse in other countries has always brought out the worst in humans, and it was the women and children who suffered first. So, I figured at least Brian could deal with his discomfort and rest easy knowing his wife was alive and safe. Even though we were all stranded in the middle of nowhere.

  “It was good, a little... greasy? Not gross, but the texture was like... I don't know. If you stewed a big chunk of ham? It could have been the way it was cooked too. I also tried Elk while we were there. It didn't taste like the venison you bring home,” she said putting a hand on her husband’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze.

  I watched the bears, listening in, but an idea was forming. It would totally be crazy, but we had nothing to lose.

  “Ready to go back in?” Jordan asked, “I want to see how the new dehydrator is working.”

  “Sure, let's go,” I said pulling the cord on the little motor.

  7

  The new smoker we built worked, though not as great as I had hoped. The bottom two racks were too close to the heat and cooked the food too much. What the remaining shelves did, though, was quadruple our capacity to where we could put away so much fish that it was unbelievable. How we used the big smoker was a bit different than the little Coleman model, though... We worried about melting the plastic sides so, instead of building a big fire inside it, we dug a hole in the dirt and then made a fire in the fire ring outside. When it burned down into hot coals, we filled the tin bucket from the woodstove inside and ferried them into the hole in the ground. Then we added water soaked wood chips to the top. We added hot coals and chips at intervals to keep it going.

  The smoke that came billowing out was more than I expected the first time, and before we figured out how long it took before we had to rotate the meat on the shelves, we did waste some food. We also got to up our fishing routine. Instead of smoking the fish to completion, we found out we could smoke the fish for half the usual time and then put it in the dehydrator we built to finish drying off.

  “That's too simple,” Tracy said walking up to me.

  “What is?” I asked her.

  “The doors on those, hell, those are simple too, but they work. Where did you learn to do this kind of stuff?” she asked.

  Instead of a hinge, I just clipped the plastic to a long stick. It was pulled across the fourth panel around the stick driven into the ground and tucked behind the pole driven into the ground and a small length of cord tied the top sticks together. Simple, primitive, but it was what we had. Bonus was the fact it was so easy to make. If the plastic didn’t work, we could fashion something else… as it was…

  “Well,” I said, “I spent a lot of time as a kid hunting and fishing. Once I got on the prepper kick a few years back, I did a lot of reading. I started to go to workshops, the last one being in South Carolina. I built a solar dehydrator, which is basically a solar oven with a vent hole.”

  “What are you worried is going to happen?” she asked. “The end of the world? Y2K? That whole 2012 Mayan calendar thing?”

  “It already happened,” I said, confused. “We're stuck up here because it happened.”

  “I know, I was just being goofy,” she told me.

  “Well, be goofy all you want, just don't forget to shake your boots out in the
morning.”

  “You wouldn't dare...”

  I just laughed and she stomped away, swearing vile threats, carrying a load of cattail stalks and roots inside the cabin. I knew she really wasn't pissed, but it was funny. I had no plans of putting any sort of critter anywhere near her. The last time I'd pranked her like that I'd ended up kicked in the nuts, so I wasn't about to risk actually doing it. Threatening on the other hand...

  “That thing's working pretty good now,” Jordan said, dragging some dead wood towards the side of the cabin to be cut and split for firewood.

  “Yeah, using the cabin's thermometer made all the difference in the world now we have things figured out,” I told him.

  “Any luck on mooseburgers or bear burgers?”

  “I'm going to be building some bigger snares tonight; want to learn how?” I asked him.

  “Hey, I want to learn too!” I heard from within the cabin.

  “Don't worry Tracy, you know where I live nowadays,” I called back.

  “Yeah, and now I know where to serve the papers!”

  “Papers?” I called back, my voice echoing.

  “20 years of missed alimony payments.”

  I sputtered for half a second and then resolved myself to actually think of a plan I could get away with up here. A prank worthy enough to pay her back for getting chucked off the boat and soaking my clothing and shoes. That was another worry, what would we do in the middle of winter time? Could we make our own leather? I had a couple binders chocked full of info. It was condensed and shrunk down literature I'd pulled off the internet and laminated, before putting them in clear plastic sleeves so I wouldn't have to poke holes through them.