Evergreen (Book 5): The Nuclear Frontier

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Harper white-knuckled the handlebars while swerving around wrecks. Downhill runs helped cut the time it would take to reach Fairplay. She had to be doing thirty or forty miles per hour, way faster than possible on foot. Alas, the burst of speed lasted only for a short stretch before the ground leveled off. Going uphill slowed them, but they still moved at least as fast as walking, so the bicycles didn’t turn into a handicap.

  Harper couldn’t stop yawning. Cliff pulled her out of bed before sunrise.

  Ever since they’d settled in Evergreen, she’d been more or less waking up with the sun. Before, in the normal, boring, ordinary life of an average suburban teenager, she didn’t get along well with dawn. Left to her own devices, she’d have stayed up until one or two in the morning and crawled out of bed around ten. Unfortunately, the people who used to run the school system disagreed with such a schedule, insisting on starting stupidly early for some unknown reason. Dragging her ass out of bed before she wanted to move had been standard procedure for her entire life… at least from about age six on.

  Nowadays, she woke naturally with the sunrise, and didn’t suffer the same foot-dragging listlessness as before when the alarm clock kicked her out of bed. The oddity of it struck her as confusing. How could she get up so early without a problem when all her life she hated mornings? Maybe because she generally went to sleep when the sun went down—especially when the electricity didn’t work. She no longer had tons of homework to do before morning or the internet to keep her up late. She, Renee, and Grace—before Darci arrived in Evergreen—had a long conversation about the effect electrical light and industrialized society had on the human circadian rhythm, forcing people to function on sleep-wake schedules the body couldn’t adapt to.

  Renee liked the ‘natural’ alarm clock of dawn. Harper kinda agreed with her, but wouldn’t have unless she’d lived it. However, Cliff smashed her routine by waking her up an hour before sunrise. While she’d always had to wake up early for school, and she’d been getting up at dawn recently, she’d only woken up before the sun a handful of times in her life. Two had been to hit the road with Dad to attend shooting competitions out of state, one to catch a plane for a family vacation to Florida. In those cases, she only needed to be awake long enough to go from house to car before she could sleep again.

  Apparently, Cliff decided to revert to his military ways and woke up at the time Darci used to go to sleep—roughly four in the morning. By the time he returned to the house to wake Harper and Logan, he’d already talked Walter into letting them use the bikes as well as attached a ‘rear’ seat to one. The thin black steel frame and red padded cushions made her think the chair came from a pizza place. He’d cut the legs off and turned them into a frame, which he’d bolted to a cargo shelf already installed on the bike.

  For sake of thoroughness, Harper ended up testing the seat while Logan pedaled around in circles. It felt secure enough, so they’d deemed the add-on seat a success and left Evergreen at sunrise. Her Mossberg rode in a sheath made from a soft nylon rifle case strapped to the side of the bike, in easy reach should she need it. Cliff and Logan had similar hook-ups for their AR-15s. When Walter suggested they bring a fourth person along for increased security, Ken Zhang volunteered to go. He borrowed one of the scoped .308 rifles in case they ended up having to deal with a sniper problem.

  Madison got out of bed the same time as Harper, shadowing her for the hour and a half they spent awake before leaving town. Surprisingly, her kid sister didn’t throw a fit or even act overly emotional when they started riding. Knowing Madison, it didn’t seem likely the girl buried her feelings to have a meltdown once they’d gone out of sight. Perhaps hearing Cliff talk about the route being tremendously simple eased her mind: south down Route 74 to the end of Evergreen, hook around a curve onto Route 73 and take it to Route 285, which they’d stay on all the way to Fairplay. They didn’t have to remember any tricky turns hours from now and, in theory, couldn’t get lost.

  The bicycles might also have helped eased Madison’s fears. If another group of ‘survivalists’ or a gang decided to cause trouble, they’d have a more difficult time catching people on bikes than on foot. The Express riders made the trip back and forth to Fairplay more than once, reasonable evidence the route ought to be mostly safe. Since gangs, bandits, wild animals, and weather didn’t exactly follow predictable schedules, everyone remained vigilant.

  Harper and Cliff started off the ride discussing tactics in the event of an unexpected ambush. Straddling a mountain bike didn’t make for a great position in a gunfight. He suggested ducking down and riding hard to the nearest cover, even if it meant a ditch on the side of the road and taking a spill off the bike. Eating dirt wouldn’t hurt anywhere near as much as eating a bullet. Their response would, naturally, depend on the nature of threats. No point crashing into a tree on purpose if an idiot fifty feet away threatened them waving a hatchet.

  They all wore backpacks of the type she once used for school. Instead of textbooks, they carried water jugs, raw vegetables, and some bread—enough food to last four days if rationed. If they could obtain a meal at Fairplay, all the better, but Cliff didn’t want to depend on it. Despite planning to find shelter in town for the night, everyone also packed a blanket in case something went sideways and they had to camp outside.

  Back on flat road at the bottom of the hill, Harper pedaled along, cruising faster than anyone could walk, but didn’t kick her butt to maintain. Someone had spray-painted doomsday messages in black on an all-concrete overpass up ahead. Everything from ‘doom is the price of capitalism’ to ‘death are the wages of sin’ to a simple ‘we are all f***ed’, using skulls and crossbones to censor out a few letters.

  Unbelievable. The world’s on fire and someone still has a problem with curse words. Did my mother write that? What’s wrong? Billions dead isn’t shocking enough, but some survivor might be ‘offended’ at an F-bomb? People are so damned stupid.

  She gazed at various strip malls, gas stations, and little towns on either side of Route 285 as they rode by. No one even suggested stopping to check any of them out. By now, everything usable had either been looted already, rotted in place, or would be too bulky to carry on bicycles. Even if they did find good stuff, anything they kept would have to fit in their backpacks.

  A few minutes after passing a blue sign reading ‘In Memory of James R. Ellison, Please Drive Slowly,’ they discovered a rather unexpected sight for a highway: a huge debris field apparently from a crashed aircraft. Based on the section of tail and the remains of only one engine lying in the middle of the road, she figured it had been a military jet of some kind.

  “Whoa,” said Ken. “Someone missed the runway.”

  “Just a bit.” Logan whistled. “One of ours?”

  Cliff made an appraising noise. “Ehh, jets aren’t my thing, but the tail looks like it came from an F-16. Possibly out of Peterson AFB, or maybe Buckley. Those boys would definitely have known the nukes were incoming. Could be, they tried to intercept the missiles. Can’t think of any other reason they’d have been in the air during the strike.”

  Harper looked down. At least they tried.

  “You’re sure the plane was flying when it happened? Maybe they went up the next day to survey damage?” asked Ken.

  “Ehh, don’t think so.” Cliff exhaled hard. “Military airfields would’ve been primary targets. Any planes on the ground would’ve been vaporized.”

  “Carrier?” asked Harper.

  “Not an F-16.” Logan smiled.

  “Huh?” She shrugged. “I dunno anything about military planes. Those aren’t on carriers?”

  “Nope.” Logan shook his head.

  Harper swerved around pieces of former aircraft in the road. However it ended up here, she offered a moment’s silence for the pilot, thanking them for trying to protect people. Only a hint of ‘fuel smell’ hung in the air, a good sign the crash occurred quite a while ago. Above, the dust haze swirled in alternating bands of darker grey,
making the sky look like a rumpled satin sheet.

  How long is it going to take all that dirt to come back down? I shouldn’t complain. At least we didn’t have a nuclear winter.

  One hour melted into the next. They rode along the wreck-strewn highway, surrounded by picturesque scenery, an ever-changing panorama of wide-open land, trees, forest-covered distant hills, rock faces, valleys, and steep canyon walls.

  Another blue sign read, “In Memory of Stephanie Webb, Levi Sanford.” Beyond it to the right, a garage type building and several dump trucks stood at the base of a huge rocky hill. Up ahead, Route 285 entered a canyon with a rock wall on the left and a tree-covered mountain on the right. A fence of thin steel cables and knee-high posts divided the highway in half. Everyone veered to the right, perhaps out of subconscious habit not to drive into the oncoming lane.

  It had been a few hours since they started the trip, so when Logan asked about stopping for a pee break, Cliff groaned, as did Ken. Harper cringed, going from ‘fine’ to ‘bladder crisis’ in an instant. Her desire to get home in one piece as fast as possible stomped on any sense of embarrassment. She calmly pulled her bike to the side of the road, hopped off, and stepped over the guardrail, intent on watering the ground right there. Despite a mild blush, she forced herself to lower her jeans and squat out in the open. Not only had Cliff been in the Army, served in combat zones, and seen it all before, he’d totally become Dad—so she felt confident he wouldn’t look. Logan had already seen all her secrets. Ken would probably be more embarrassed than her, so she ignored her emotions to get things done and back on the road as fast as possible.

  Without a word, all three guys stepped over the cable fence to pee on the rock wall on the left side of the highway, standing with their backs to Harper. Logan peeked over his shoulder at her every few seconds. Once she had her jeans back up, he muttered something and the guys returned to where all the bikes leaned on the guardrail.

  They took a short break to drink some water and munch on raw string beans, carrots, and potatoes. Not the ideal snack, but they didn’t exactly have trail mix on hand, nor anything else suitable to bring on the road. No one in Evergreen had bothered making beef—or venison—jerky. In between bites of potato, Harper suggested they look into making some since it would be a way to preserve meat in the event of a loss of refrigeration. Sounded like a great idea until Cliff and Ken told her jerky only lasted a week or two.

  Soon after they resumed riding, they reached the town of Pine Junction. The streets in sight from Route 285 looked empty, though Harper swore she saw figures moving around, ducking for cover behind a long, rustic-looking building, apparently the ‘Someplace Else Saloon’ according to the sign on the roof. Another guy darted out of sight through a gap between the bar and two-story brown structure somewhat stylized to look like a giant log cabin. A big, oval wooden sign attached to the railing of the second-story porch identified it as ‘The Log Building on Hwy 285’. It appeared to be some kind of shopping center containing a thrift store. She got the sense people inside it watched them, but no one called out, showed themselves, or shot at them.

  Harper kept peeking at the parking lot in front of the place until they’d gone far enough off not to be able to see it anymore. Guess they’re scared of outsiders. Better that than hostile.

  “Something catch your eye?” asked Cliff.

  “Thought I saw some people back there. Whoever it was ran like hell as soon as they saw us.”

  Cliff chuckled. “Fine by me. Rather be run from than shot at.”

  “Same here.” She smiled.

  “Problem on the way back?” asked Logan.

  Cliff made a so-so hand tilt. “Gonna be at least tomorrow before we come by again. Probably catch them off guard and be out of sight before they can do anything… and they have no reason to expect we’d be coming back anyway.”

  “Right…” Harper exhaled.

  They rode on.

  Here and there, they passed buildings or small towns, some little more than a gas station and a Subway shop in sight from Route 285. Harper looked straight up as she rode beneath a set of power lines crossing the highway, astounded to see them intact. The deeper they’d gone into the hills away from the Denver area, the fewer wrecked cars existed. By about three or four in the afternoon at her estimation, the few cars and trucks they encountered appeared abandoned, not melted. Most sat in parking lots, only a handful on the road.

  “It’s so eerie out here.” Harper stared at the red-and-white awning over the gas pumps at a Loaf ’N Jug as it went by on her right. “Nothing looks destroyed. It’s like all the people simply disappeared.”

  “Yeah total Night of the Comet stuff,” said Ken.

  “Huh?” asked Harper.

  “Old movie.” He chuckled. “People just disappeared into dust.”

  “Yeah.” Logan whistled. “Where did everyone go? No nukes hit this far up in the mountains.”

  “Not around here anyway.” Cliff chuckled. “Imagine the locals went wherever they thought they might be able to find food. Could be hundreds of little tiny settlements out there, just a family or three living together on the same farm. Anywhere they managed to survive.”

  Harper stared into the distance on her left. Fields, hills, and more trees. She’d never before even considered the idea small groups might be out there fending for themselves on family farms, and spent a while trying to come up with reasons ancient humans decided to live in towns and cities. ‘Mutual protection’ made the most sense, so if people didn’t have an outside threat to be afraid of, they might stay isolated. Not like grocery stores, doctors, dentists, or malls existed anymore to draw people in.

  At the town of Bailey, Route 285 swung around to the right, going from southerly to due west. A building with a green roof and bare wood siding marked ‘Rustic Station’ appeared to have been the scene of a war. Four square windows facing the highway had all been broken out, the walls around them pockmarked by bullet holes. At the far end of the lot beyond, a big sign on the roof of a larger building read ‘Alcohol Tobacco Firearms’ between a pair of green plus signs.

  “Everything the post-apocalyptic badass needs,” said Cliff.

  “What do you think happened here?” Ken raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, probably the first group of locals came here to grab some guns and booze, then spent the next few days defending their stash.” Cliff waved dismissively at the little shopping center. “Probably used up all their ammo, got overrun, and killed. Or they effed off into the hills.”

  Logan stood on the pedals, staring left as they cruised by. “You sure they’re not still in there?”

  “Yep. No one’s shot at us.” Cliff laughed. “And there aren’t any bodies lying about. Someone cleaned up after the big mess.”

  Up ahead, a large white box truck had crashed into the side of a convenience store-slash-car wash at a Conoco station, missing a cage full of propane tanks by inches. Cliff pulled over to the truck and hopped off his bike.

  “Guess we’re scavenging.” Harper stopped beside him.

  “Just curious why no one’s popped the door on this thing. Unmarked white trucks this big always make me suspicious.” He grinned, drew the crowbar from his North Face pack like a barbarian yanking a sword from a back sheath, then attacked the lock.

  Logan stopped on Harper’s left. “He’s looking for coffee.”

  “Damn straight.” Cliff popped the padlock, stuffed the crowbar into the backpack, and flung the truck door upward.

  The cargo area contained multiple stacks of large cardboard boxes marked only with cryptic numbers, no brand logos or anything obvious. Cliff pulled his knife and began a hasty examination of the contents. Ken climbed up into the truck to help. After a few minutes, Logan, too, muttered something about making it go faster, and also entered the truck to assist.

  “Anything?” Ken looked up from a box. “This is all cheap dollar store bullshit.”

  “Yeah,” muttered Cliff, sounding disappointed
. “Not even good toys. Chintzy knockoffs like He Person dolls or GI Jim.”

  “I got some Sailor of the Moon toys.” Ken laughed.

  Logan whistled. “Wow, they’re not even trying hard to pretend these aren’t rip offs.”

  “Hah.” Harper shook her head.

  “I’m serious.” Cliff pulled something out of a box and held it up. “GI Jim figures. Looks sorta like a drunk guy drew GI Joe characters.”

  “The derpy cross-eyes totally make it.” Ken laughed.

  “Get some spatulas,” deadpanned Harper. “Those cheap stores always have spatulas.”

  Cliff, Logan, and Ken rummaged boxes for another minute or two before Harper’s right butt cheek mysteriously warmed up.

  Naturally, she considered this an unusual event.

  What the heck?

  She twisted to look behind her—and came within an inch of wetting her pants.

  A full-grown mountain lion had snuck up on her, its nose inches away. The big cat kept sniffing her, its breath warming her jean-covered backside. Staring into the shimmering green eyes of a cat roughly waist high to her took all the strength out of her legs. If not for the bike under her, she might’ve collapsed.

  Hi, Kitty. Nice kitty. Please don’t bite me… please don’t make someone shoot you.

  The cat appeared more curious than angry, ears up, eyes wide. Paws bigger than her hands concealed dangerous claws. As majestic as the animal was, she couldn’t think of it as a big housecat. In a split second, it could go from beautiful and majestic to deadly. Unsure how to react to having a big furry murder machine’s nose so close to her butt, she held as still as possible.