Endure (End Times Alaska Book 1)

by Craig Martelle

  Madison sobbed in her seat.

  “Don’t touch your face with your gloves on. Take them off!”

  She responded mechanically, letting them drop to the floor. How much had we touched at the University? How contaminated were we?

  I drove probably faster than I should have, but our previous tracks in the ash were quickly disappearing. With our headlights on bright, I could see far enough ahead to stay in control. No traffic, but plenty of obstacles. We raced ahead at the front of the storm, maintaining a blistering pace of about fifteen miles an hour. We hit the end of a light pole and bounced into the air, but nothing broke. The Jeep kept rolling along.

  “Be careful!” Madison shot at me. My family was here and I was putting them at risk.

  “I’m sorry.” I slowed to a crawl to get us back to Ballaine. I didn’t want Madison outside any more. I didn’t know what would cause us problems. I didn’t know enough about radiation to feel comfortable that we weren’t already sick.

  Once on Ballaine, the roadway was mostly clear. We kept it in four-high and maintained a steady thirty-five mph.

  I naturally slowed down as I came to the intersection of Ballaine and Goldstream. But I didn’t stop. I kept it in four-wheel drive and headed up the hill toward home. This was the worst road in bad weather, but that was usually because people drove too fast. It was just us and we were only driving thirty-five.

  The rest of the drive was uneventful, as much as a drive in the snow at dusk can be.

  I didn’t want to park the Jeep in the garage as it could be contaminated. We parked outside by the other Jeep, where we quickly took off our coats and wrestled the twins out of their car seats. We carried them to the garage, where we took off our boots, keeping them as close to the door as we could. The dogs were happy to see us. They had to wait.

  When the twins were inside, we took off our pants. I pulled both pairs of jeans inside out so I didn’t have to touch the outside. I put them by our contaminated boots. The dogs wanted to sniff everything they weren’t supposed to, so I opened the door and shooed them outside. I put on my snow pants, a different pair of boots, and a heavy coat. I wrapped the boots in the inside-out jeans and carried everything outside. I didn’t want to risk contaminating anything new, so I put them on the passenger floor of Madison’s Jeep. I would move my Jeep back into the garage. It looked as if Madison’s Jeep was down for the count, unless we found a Geiger counter somewhere. Maybe the Jeep wasn’t contaminated, but we had no way of knowing for sure.

  Fallout

  Thank God for the prevailing winds and the hills, as they had saved us from the initial blast. They also saved us from the windblown radioactive dust. I felt guilty because I was happy that it wasn’t us. Aidan had a bad case of radiation sickness, but he was in the bowl surrounding Fairbanks and had received what looked like a fatal dose.

  One of the first symptoms of radiation sickness was nausea. I felt fine. Madison was upset, but that had nothing to do with being sick. We may have survived our trip to the city. I was worried about the twins. Their systems were not as well-developed. We needed to scrub down.

  We heated a couple gallons of water, then went into the garage where there was a center drain. We cranked up the kerosene heater, then gave the twins a good scrub. They were none too pleased with any of it. We scrubbed our hands and faces, although we had been well covered when outside. We had taken our gloves off when we were in the Jeep. Madison had been inside the building, where she was more exposed than me. I didn’t bring that up to her. I hoped that she hadn’t kicked up too much dust and that she was okay. If not, there was nothing we could do.

  I didn’t want to lose her. I didn’t want to have to carry on without her. I started to shake.

  “What’s wrong?” Madison was alarmed.

  “Just had a cold chill. Brrr!” I ruffled the twins’ hair. They still weren’t pleased. “How is your stomach?” Nausea would have to be our measure. I didn’t know what else to do, what else to look for.

  “I’m not hungry, if that’s what you mean. It was so horrible.” I nodded. She wasn’t ready to see what she had seen. Close friends were few and far between.

  All the times when I didn’t pay enough attention or wanted to watch some TV show. What had I taken for granted before? Here, in front of me now, was everything that mattered. And I was helpless to influence it. Why hadn’t I checked further to see what the explosion was? I guessed a nuclear blast, but didn’t think beyond that of what it meant. We would have never gone into town had we known. We took a great risk. Too much of a risk.

  I turned off the kerosene heater. We hugged our twins, then went back inside. It was getting darker outside and there was plenty to do, but now was not the time. Tomorrow would be a better day.

  “Who wants to hear Green Eggs and Ham!?” I yelled. We had one bag of Sam’s Club popcorn in the cupboard. No sense trying to save it until it was no good. We even had some milk in the refrigerator. Time to make good hot chocolate, with milk. Who knew how long it would be before we could enjoy those delicacies again?

  The Dog Musher II

  The Dog Musher went about his business as usual. The power still wasn’t back on. A neighbor had driven by earlier and said that they were bugging out. The whole town was leaving, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t take all his dogs. He had a dog box for sixteen for his truck, but that wasn’t enough.

  He politely declined the invitation. The neighbor asked, since he was staying, if he could keep an eye on their place while they were gone. He nodded. They lived in the next house up the road. He didn’t see what the big deal was. So there wasn’t any power, that didn’t mean you needed to be in a rush to leave.

  “It’s the end of the world! Bill drove down there yesterday and he said the whole city is gone! We’re out here on our own!”

  The city was gone? Maybe the world would be a better place with fewer cities, but Fairbanks needed to be there. It was big enough to support the needs of the community, but not so big that it sucked you in if you didn’t want. Fairbanks was a good place with good people.

  The Dog Musher thought it had to be an accident. No one could destroy a city deliberately, could they? No. It was an accident.

  “There has to be some mistake. The city is gone?”

  The neighbor nodded emphatically and threw his hands up in surrender. “I don’t know. I’ll see for myself when we drive through. My sister lives in Anchorage. We’ll stay with her until things get sorted out. Then we’ll be back.”

  “I’ll watch your place for you. I’m sure you won’t be gone long.” As an afterthought, he added, “Be safe.”

  He needed to think. That meant it was time to take his dog team for a run.

  The Convoy

  About six inches of snow fell overnight. The plan was to have a cleared road for when help showed up.

  I took the snow thrower out while it was still dark. It had good lights and there weren’t any cars. I ran quickly, clearing a track around our parking pad, down the driveway, and down our dirt road all the way to Chena Hot Springs Road. One track down and one back. I made a loop around the neighborhood as well so we’d have a longer dog-walking trail. I ran in high gear. It took me a total of twenty minutes to clear what I wanted. At this rate, I could probably make it all winter with what was still in the gas tank. I would keep plowing a trail for as long as possible. We needed the normalcy of it.

  It was late morning and the sun would be rising shortly. I was outside with the dogs, finishing up our morning generator run. We had two batteries charged and my Jeep was back in the garage. Madison’s Jeep was now off limits.

  With the generator shut down, the sound was obvious. Vehicles. And quite a few of them.

  I put the dogs inside and raced to the road as quickly as my asthma would allow. I expected to see a convoy of military vehicles. That’s not what it was.

  It was a convoy of personal vehicles, mostly trucks, but also some motorhomes. They were coming from the Two Rivers side of u
s, heading toward the city. I got to the road by the time the first one was close. He stopped when he saw me waving.

  “Grab your stuff and join us!” the scruffy old man yelled through the open window. A dog stuck its muzzle out and gave me a hearty sniff.

  “Where are you going?” I asked as I scratched behind the dog’s ears.

  “Heading to Anchorage. We want to get out of here before we get trapped.” The vehicles in the convoy slowed to a stop behind the old man. There were headlights for a good mile behind the first truck, and the vehicles were packed close together. A hundred vehicles? More? This could have been everyone left between here and Chena Hot Springs itself.

  With him leading this many vehicles, there was no way he would be talked out of continuing. “There’s radiation in the city. You might want to consider taking Goldstream and Ballaine, and don’t stop or get out until you’re on Parks Highway.”

  He nodded and furled his brow. “Thanks buddy – fall in at the end as soon as you can. We need to get moving. It’s going to be a long drive.” He rolled the window up and plowed forward. He was probably in the lead because of the over-sized tires on his truck. The truck bed was filled with gas cans.

  I had no intention of trying to pack up and leave. I did not want to go back to the city. I didn’t want to take my family back into the city.

  I stood on the side of the road and waved at each truck as it passed. Mostly families. Lots of dogs. Some dog mushers with dog boxes full, sleds strapped on top. Lots and lots of stuff. The truck beds were loaded down with a variety of things. Some people looked like they were going camping. Others appeared to moving out, taking everything they owned with them.

  A young couple pulled over. “Hey man! Time to blow this joint!”

  Hippies. You have to love them. “Why do you think that?”

  “There’s nothing left, man. It’s all fun and games until your stuff doesn’t work. We were getting cold. We didn’t have any firewood. Time to go. Come on, man! Join the party.”

  Party. How many people were dead? I felt guilty again. Why had we been chosen to survive? Why had these people been so lucky? I sighed.

  “That’s okay. We’re fine. I think help will come before anything gets too bad. By the way, be careful in the city – keep your windows rolled up and don’t stop. There’s radiation in there. It was a nuke that took everything out.” That didn’t seem to resonate. I continued, “Thanks for checking in on me. Good luck and we’ll see you again.” They perked up, waving as they drove off.

  I wasn’t so sure they’d make it very far. Any of them.

  What To Do

  “Maybe we should join them …” Madison left it hanging, both a statement and a question. The pellet stove was running and we were huddled around it. The twins were trying to ride the dogs.

  “I don’t want to go back into the city. I don’t think we can leave until the city is cleaned up. That means melting snow and the spring rain. Until then I don’t think we can leave, not before next year anyway.”

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  “We get them potty-trained. And we live.” I hugged her tightly. “We live well.” She looked at me with tears in her eyes. Our lives and our world had changed. We would talk about it the rest of the winter, but change was on us. The best thing we could do was to establish a routine. I needed order in my life. I needed little things like coffee. I needed my family around me. That included the dog, well, dogs.

  “Let’s put together a schedule. Something to accomplish each day. Something that will make tomorrow important. Every tomorrow.” This was more than a suggestion. I needed it.

  “I propose we have movie Friday. One day a week, we can watch a movie.” This was convenient as today was Friday. “Who wants to watch a movie?” The twins hadn’t ever watched that much TV, but it was still a treat. They were children of the twenty-first century. They nodded and ran to the couch. Oops. It wasn’t quite movie time yet. The twins had one time reference and that was now. No other time existed for them.

  We pulled them onto our laps. Not time yet for a movie, which would probably be Pinocchio or maybe Frozen. With two-year-olds, there was nothing else. It’s what we signed up for when we decided to have kids. We had an extensive library of other movies, but I wasn’t sure when we’d watch any of them. We had two discs from Netflix. I guess they wouldn’t be getting those back anytime soon. I would continue to pay the monthly fee by direct deduction from the checking account. I’d get to pay Netflix in perpetuity for two discs. I’d cancel that stuff as soon as we could get online.

  We penciled in the daily things we needed to do like run the generator, read to the twins. We needed to improve our scavenging. We could use more food, more dog food, pellets for the stove, and diapers. The never-ending search for diapers.

  We weren’t changing the twins as often as we should have, and they were developing rashes. We needed more baby powder, too. Potty-training might be a full-time job, but without diapers and with the rashes, what else was there to do?

  Developing a scavenge plan was my way of getting some control back over our lives. The first house had to be the one on the corner where I had already drained their barrel of gas. They had a snow machine that we could use to pull a sleigh. They had a truck. And then there was Husky’s house, where hopefully we’d find plenty of dog food. Both the dogs seemed to always be hungry. I was convinced they were using all their energy to grow hair. And then shed it in our great room.

  We could stand to lose a little weight. I wasn’t sure how long our supplies needed to hold out, but with radiation in the area, help might not come for a long time. We had to make everything last, so Madison and I had to ration what we ate. There must always be enough for the twins.

  The Joy of Scavenging

  It was hard to believe that it had only been three days since the explosion. We had more information now. It told me that we were on our own. Everything changed, but things remained the same. We still needed to go shopping, but we’d do it in a whole new way.

  I put the bolt cutter, our axe, and a pry bar into one of the twin’s sleds and pulled it behind me as I headed for the house on the corner. I took the dogs with me, even though temperatures were dropping. In Fairbanks, it warms up to snow, snows, then the snow acts as insulation, keeping temperatures steady for a little while afterwards. Then the sky clears up and temperatures plummet. It makes for a beautiful cold. Crystals form on the trees, making it look like Christmas all the time.

  Speaking of Christmas, what kind of presents would I find in this house? I had a lock pick, but with the cold, there was no way I could work it with bare hands. I used the pry bar to break the lock on the door. Pine door frame. It came apart easily. I was looking for keys to the snow machine and the truck. This couple made it easy. There was a key rack by the front door. I took them all. I’d “borrow” the quad as well, just in case.

  I turned to leave and then stopped. We needed food, too. I looked around their home. It was small, maybe a total of nine hundred square feet. They had a wood stove in the living room. The kitchen was open to the living room. They had a small table in the dining nook. The home looked well lived-in. It wasn’t messy, and it wasn’t dirty. They took good care of their home.

  And I was standing in it like a thief. My stomach lurched. My conscience heaved. But they aren’t coming back, I rationalized to myself. I’m keeping a list of what I take. But what about the damage I just did to their door? What about the violation of their space?

  I would make a good scavenger, because it’s what I needed to do. For my family. For survival. But I didn’t like it.

  They conveniently had plastic grocery bags. I took all their canned goods. They seemed to like potato chips. I took those, too. I didn’t even eat potato chips. They gave me heartburn. They liked their beer. A case and a half of Miller Lite. It was frozen solid. Cans had burst. That was probably the proper fate for Miller Lite. I threw the two burst cans in their trash. No need for a mess when sp
ring came.

  I checked their freezer. They didn’t have much. We could always get it later. It would be four or five months before it thawed.

  Everything in the refrigerator was frozen. I left it. Maybe I would clean out their refrigerator, too. Or maybe not. I didn’t think I would come back to their house. As the first one I “shopped” in, it would always bring back bad memories.

  I put the groceries in the children’s sled. That filled it up. I tried to start the truck, but it wouldn’t even turn over. I put the key in the snow machine, choked it, and it fired up. It ran smoothly. I backed it out from beside their shed and headed it toward our house. I hooked up the rope from the little plastic sled and slowly drove home.

  The snow machine would broaden my reach. I wanted to see who else was around. Maybe we can have a circuit where people check in on each other, to make sure everyone was okay, I thought. Or not. We had to take care of ourselves first.

  But I didn’t want to go to war with anyone over a few cans of Spam. Getting acquainted with the neighbors would reduce friction. We needed to look around, for our peace of mind, and because we had to. I couldn’t turn my back on the rest of humanity, not when my family was in good shape. It would be selfish not to explore further.

  I had a snow machine now (properly documented on my list of acquisitions, of course), so there was no excuse not to look for other survivors.

  More Scavenging

  Husky’s house was the twin of the house on the corner. Small and efficient. The pine door frame gave easily. I looked for dog food. They had a small child. Maybe he was still in diapers.

  When I opened the door, Husky pushed past me and raced through the house, her dog face anxious. Her body language was sad. She whimpered. I got down on a knee and pulled her in close, rubbing her ears and head. “I’m sorry, Husky. We’ll take care of you. If your family ever comes back, they will see you happy and healthy.” Her tail lifted a little and wagged reluctantly. “We owe that to them. We owe that to you. Come on, let’s see what help your family has for us.”