“Flint’s gone,” he said. “One of the first cities to burn down. The survivors were bussed out of town if you believe the papers.”
“Oh man,” I said, not knowing what to think of everything.
“I can take you with me and drop you off at one of my next two stops, up to you, but I’m not heading towards Michigan. The USA is in a world of hurt currently. Alaska and the Pacific Northwest like Washington are the only areas not in total anarchy and chaos. Their power grids didn’t get knocked out.”
“Washington?” Tracy asked and then looked at her husband.
“We’ll get on the trip to Alaska,” Brian told Patrick.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked Denise.
Jordan too was staring at the girls, one to the other. We were probably thinking the same thing. Was this it?
“Wherever you are,” Denise told me, burying her face in my neck in a fierce hug.
“Right then, let’s get a move on, shall we? My co-pilot’s likely to come out here looking for me and cock something up.”
I laughed. It was just too surreal.
* * *
We’d been in the air for an hour. One of the quirks our pilot had was collecting newspapers. He said in a day’s time he could fly from mainland to Alaska in one long string. Even if everybody was reporting on the same story, every geographical location had their own slant, their own view or new information one of them didn’t. He hadn’t been flying at all the past week, so the papers we were reading were from two weeks ago, dated February 1st.
“America At War,” one read. “80% mortality as exceptionally strong winter storms move through North America,” read another.
“80% mortality?” I asked Patrick, walking towards the cockpit for some more warmth.
Here’s a little hint, cargo planes aren’t built like passenger liners where there are seat heaters, personal lights, and air conditioners. You sit as close to the cockpit as you can and shiver in the sleeping bags and clothing. It was too cramped for six of us to be in there at once, so we hung back near the doorway.
“I heard it was worse,” David, Patrick’s co-pilot said.
“Worse?” I asked, not quite believing it.
“You should hear this bloke from Kentucky. He’s on the shortwave… sorry, forgot, no radio for you… Uh…” he broke off as he got a good look at my face. “Bloody hell, what happened to you?”
Tracy stood up and moved behind me and answered before I could say anything. “He saved one of us by tackling a bear and killing it with his knife.”
Both pilots cursed, and I turned around to tell Tracy what a liar she was when we hit a little turbulence. I got a good look and everyone behind me in the cramped hallway to the cargo hold was smiling or cracking up.
“Took on a bear with a knife. No wonder these folks did ok up here on their own.”
“That guy’s from Flint, Michigan,” Patrick said, pointing at me.
I opened my mouth to say something, but David made the sign of the cross and I paused then took a breath.
“I heard about Flint, it’s ok. I’m not going back.”
“No, I wasn’t uh… I heard Flint was pretty rough, even before the whole end of the world thing,” David told me.
“Honestly,” I said, “now? I think I’m better off wrestling another bear than going back there.”
“Right you are, right you are. Any of you have family you want us to radio ahead for?”
“We’re all kind of orphans,” Tracy said. “Unless you can get a message to somebody in Washington state?”
“I can try, Miss. Once we land in Winnipeg you can call them maybe?”
“That would be great. Let me write down what I know…” Tracy grabbed the flight log and got a blank page near the back and wrote down the details and handed it back to him.
“Not much to go on, but we can try,” Patrick told her after reading the note.
“Trying is all we’ve been doing since July,” Tracy told him and headed back.
After a moment, I followed as well.
“Tomorrow is Valentine’s day,” I said, crawling into the 2 sleeping bags Denise and I had zipped together.
“So, what’s your point?” she asked.
“What do you want for Valentine’s day?” I asked her, kissing her on the nose.
“Change of plans,” David said, one ear covered from the headphones. “We’re the last flight into Winnipeg. Bad storm front coming in. We’re going to have to stay the night and fly out in the morning. When we told the flight controllers about finding you, they said they have four rooms at the local hotel for us. Will that work?”
“I’d love it,” I called back and kissed Denise again.
“Spending Valentine’s day in a hotel room? Our own bed, by ourselves…”
“Oy, let’s not make it pornographic in here will ya, I got flying to do,” Patrick yelled.
Why did it always come back to that?
“We don’t mind. It’ll be nice to get someplace that has central heat!”
“Do they have fast food there in Winnipeg?” Jordan yelled.
Suddenly I was ravenous, achingly hungry for a double cheeseburger.
“Yeah, you blokes hungry? There’s a McDonalds in the airport lounge. I could stop in and get you all a few McDoubles , seeing as you haven’t had a proper meal in a while.”
“I think I love him as much as I love you right now,” I told Denise.
“Oy, oy, don’t do that, we’re flying here,” David yelled, frustrated.
I wasn’t being bad, but I’d been tackled by my girlfriend inside the confines of the sleeping bag. I’d ended up pinned to the wall with her holding me face to face. I smiled.
“I can be very persuasive,”
“Little eyes,” Tonya yelled, and we all laughed.
We’d figure out what would come next. Somehow, some way. We’d survived so long on our own. Thin, but not starved, rich in spirit, and with a will to live. We would find a way, and as long as we had each other, we would never be defeated. Ahead of us, outside of the cockpit, the Northern Lights lit up the horizon as far as I could see.
--The End--
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About the Author
About The Author –
Boyd Craven III was born and raised in Michigan, an avid outdoorsman who’s always loved to read and write from a young age. When he isn’t working outside on the farm, or chasing a household of kids, he’s sitting in his Lazy Boy, typing away.
You can find the rest of Boyd’s books on Amazon here.
@boydc3
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Northern Lights: A Scorched Earth Novel Page 17
