The greenhouse was moving up in priority.
Deep down inside, I felt that we would be cut off from society for a long time. We had seen nothing since that one airplane on the third day. We’d seen some smoke from fires. But until we visited the resort, we hadn’t seen other people since the convoy. We knew they had to be there, but people in rural areas around Fairbanks are very private and able to take care of themselves. I thought we needed to make contact with more people, at least take a census of some sort.
Why us? By establishing the Community at Chena Hot Springs, maybe I had become the regional governor. Somebody had to if we were all to make it to that magical day when the world found us.
Whenever that day came, I wanted to be there. I wanted to know that I did what I could to help others, too. The death of the Dog Musher came back to me. He was one I didn’t save, but wish I had. The world needed people like him, people who loved their dogs. I gave my rifle away in the hopes that all the dogs at the resort would survive.
And that brought me out of my reverie. I needed a new hunting rifle. I had some relics from the Cold War; AKs, SKS, and a Moisin-Nagant. Only the Moisin would bring down a moose, but it had a crazy safety. I only had twenty rounds for it, too. I needed something more modern. And we needed pellets. At least we no longer needed diapers. It’s the little victories that make you smile.
“Who wants to go shopping?” Madison quickly overruled both twins. They had their lessons, already on the calendar, and they also had yoga. Madison had not practiced for two days and it was time. The twins could twist themselves into little pretzels. I swear it was if they didn’t have bones. But this was a calming time for them and would be followed by a nap.
I left the dogs and headed out. After two days of excitement, the dogs would probably sleep for a full day before they were back in top form.
I needed to find a hunting rifle and pellets.
“Shopping” for a Rifle
I expected the farmhouse where I found the two new sleds would have firepower on hand, so that’s where I went. On this trip, I needed to get into the house. I checked around first to make sure that no one had appeared and stood ready to shoot an intruder.
There were no new tracks, except for those from one seemingly adventurous rabbit.
The door was standard for this area. Solid without a window. I had my bolt cutters and sledgehammer. When entering other people’s homes, I tried to minimize the damage I did. These people didn’t know it, but they were a lifeline for us. In a world where resources were scarce, we had to make the most out of what was available. I kept my list of what I had taken and from where. Maybe that was more for me than for those we borrowed from.
I walked around the house looking for the easiest way in. I checked the back door. It was unlocked. Once I cleared the snow from the porch, the door opened easily and I went in.
These people had not kept up on their housecleaning. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, with more on the table. It was a mess. I stopped for a second and closed my eyes, thanking them silently for opening their home to me and praying that someone from this family was away from Fairbanks at the time. Maybe someone from this family survived.
There weren’t any gun racks on the walls. I went upstairs. Nothing in the closets, from what I could see. I went back downstairs. There was a closet under the stairs. I opened it. This was where they stored their real gear. There were ammo cans. I pulled these out. There were a number of boxes of 300 Winchester magnum shells. I didn’t think there was a better rifle for hunting moose or bear. But the rifle wasn’t in the closet. There was a shotgun and ammunition for a variety of smaller calibers, to include full-metal jacketed rounds for my .45. I pocketed all the .45 ammo.
If the 300 Winchester was in the house, I had missed it. I looked in recesses behind doors and under beds. I looked for hidden compartments in the furniture, but nothing turned up.
What if they had taken it moose hunting, and it was still in their truck? Or maybe still in the gun case of their quad. They had to have a quad. It was a farm!
I left the house and went to the barn, where it seemed the barn was cleaner than the house. The hay was neatly stacked and things were in order. The quad was here and it had a rifle case. The case had a padlock, which my bolt cutters took care of in short order.
The rifle was there. A beautiful 300 Win mag. The owner must have dropped his entire PFD (Permanent Fund Dividend – Alaskans get a check every year based on revenue from the oil windfall years) on this rifle. Outside, I took off the scope caps and peered through. It looked like it had been focused at about three hundred yards. A nice shot well within the effective range of this rifle. I wondered if they had gotten their moose.
I slung the rifle over my shoulder and went back in the house. First thing I did was secure all the ammunition for it. There were only a hundred rounds, but it would do. I was back in business for when I needed to hunt. Or protect my family, although this rifle would not have been any good in the fight with the wolves. The 45-70 was much better for that. It had iron sights and an eighteen-inch barrel, almost like it was made for a firefight. Depending on how successful Darren and Becca were hunting, maybe I could trade them this rifle for my trusty cannon. I thought of it that way because the ammunition for it looked more like mini cannon shells than the sleek rounds of a high-powered rifle.
I checked the top freezer in their kitchen. There were some moose steaks and they didn’t look like last year’s packaging. They had to have a big freezer somewhere, probably outside where it cost nothing in the winter to run. Had there been one in the garage?
I took the ammunition, rifle, and a few moose steaks with me outside, closing the door behind me. I put everything on my sled, so my hands would be free for breaking into the garage. But that wasn’t needed as the side door to the garage was unlocked. The freezer was inside. A big chest freezer filled with a variety of moose meat. The freezer had never warmed up after we lost power. This meat was in perfect condition. We could feed our dogs and ourselves for another year on what was in here.
Add this to the dog food stored at the Dog Musher’s house and our dogs would live like kings. Madison and I had both lost weight since the detonation. There was always more work than could be done. We were constantly in motion and we burned calories heating our bodies since we kept our house at fifty. If we could find some pellets for our stove, then maybe we could turn the thermostat up a little. Fifty degrees was cold.
There seemed to be an unlimited amount of split firewood. Everyone had a wood burner. Most people were far more self-sufficient than we were. If it has to be purchased or manufactured elsewhere, it’s not good for a prepper.
Bennett Road
I needed to find pellets and further out was not the answer. Self-sufficient meant you made do with what was on hand, such as trees. They all had wood burning stoves out there. I decided that I had to risk getting closer to the city.
There was a road that paralleled ours, about a half-mile closer to the city, still on this side of the ridge. I reasoned that there would be no risk there. I cruised past the turn to our house and slowed to take the corner onto Bennett. I would look for homes with a chimney that did not have a supply of split firewood. This was like a military exercise. How could I get the most for the least effort?
I took it easy as I traveled up Bennett. It had recently been blacktopped and made for a smooth ride. Most houses were back a little from the road, so I slowed as I passed each, looking for what I considered to be the telltale signs of a pellet stove.
The last time I was on this road was before the detonation. There was a house that had a barn with horses. I wondered if they had survived. As it turned out, the horse ranch was the first house I came to that looked like it might use a pellet stove. I turned into their driveway and slowed as I approached the house.
Three shaggy horses were huddled outside the barn, eating from a rolled hay bale. They had survived and even looked healthy. But it had only been a mon
th. They had to have emulated moose by eating snow when they were thirsty. The barn provided sufficient shelter from the weather. Maybe come spring we would need to do something with the horses if help had not arrived by then. Even if it was as simple as turning them loose when the hay ran out. I didn’t want to see any more deaths of animals that had been locked up.
The front door was locked. I went around the back.
Footprints. Leading from the house to the barn.
I knocked on the door and yelled a greeting. I was instantly afraid. I had the new rifle slung over my shoulder and had a sledgehammer in my hand. I jumped down the steps into the yard, dropped the sledgehammer on the ground, and held up my hands. I stood there as a face appeared in the window.
She looked at me with wild eyes. Besides tending the horses, maybe she hadn’t left the house in the past month. She might be running low on supplies.
“Are you okay?” I asked, my hands still in the air. “I live just over there.” I pointed in the direction of our house.
She opened the door. She had a butcher knife in one hand.
“I’ll stay here; I’m not coming any closer.” I tried to put her at ease. “Is there any help that you need?”
She still looked at me, her mouth moving, but nothing came out.
“The horses look healthy. You’ve done a good job taking care of them over the past month.”
“How do you know it’s been a month?” she blurted out.
“I know because that’s when a nuclear device detonated in Fairbanks. The city is gone. The blast did a lot of damage, and then the radiation did the rest.”
Her mouth moved, but nothing came out.
“Did your husband work in the city?” It wasn’t a question. She had been waiting for her husband for a month. She’d waited, not knowing.
He wasn’t coming home.
Tears froze to her eyelashes. Her breath quickened, small clouds puffed in front of her. The knife fell from numb fingers. She turned and went back inside, closing the door behind her.
In a loud voice I said, “I’ll come back tomorrow and check on you. I’ll bring my family.” I doubted she heard me.
I was done “shopping” for today.
Our First Local Survivor
Madison thought we should be more active in finding survivors. Our trip to the Hot Springs had energized her. Madison realized that getting through this would be better if we didn’t have to do it alone. Although she was an introvert, there was a certain solace in company. We had no intention of building a commune with everyone living under one roof, but we wanted to at least know where people were living. Maybe we could even map out the hot zone and help people stay clear of the radiation.
The next day, after sun up, we loaded up the twins and the dogs into their sleighs, fired up the snow machines and made the short trip to the woman’s house around the corner. I hoped that her grief was no longer debilitating. Maybe the truth of the city’s demise had helped her achieve some closure with the loss of her husband. I didn’t know. I wasn’t good with the emotional stuff.
We pulled down her driveway and unloaded everyone. The dogs raced for the fence so they could bark at the horses, who whinnied and were none too pleased with the arrival of our dogs. I thought I saw fresh footprints to the barn.
With Charles on my hip, I tentatively ventured up the back steps. The knife was gone.
I knocked on the door as her sad face appeared and looked at me. Seeing little Charles, she started to sob, putting her hand on the window.
I opened the door and she leaned out to hug me and my little man. Maybe her child had been in the city along with her husband.
She let me go, waving us all inside after her. The kitchen was immaculate, and even a little warm. Well, warmer than what we kept our house.
We put the twins down. Aeryn pointed to the woman and asked, “Why?” She wanted to know why she was crying.
“Why don’t you ask her?” I suggested. Sometimes it helped to talk about your grief. Telling it to the innocence of small children could make the pain seem less.
Aeryn, still in her snowsuit, tottered over to the lady. “Why?” she asked in her small voice.
The woman sat down on the floor to be closer to her. Charles moved in close to his sister. We sat in chairs at the table.
“My husband took our son to the dentist on that morning and they never came home. They are never coming home, are they?”
For the children, the concept of never didn’t have any meaning. They shrugged it off. They understood on the simplest of terms. Her family wasn’t here so the woman was sad.
“What’s your name? I’m Aeryn!” She brightened as she proclaimed proudly in her little girl voice.
With a tired smile, the lady looked at our little girl. “I’m Colleen. Nice to meet you.” She held out her hand.
“I’m Charles!” Not to be outdone by his sister, he shouldered his way into the conversation. Colleen shook his hand, too.
“Hi, Charles. My son’s name is Antonio and he’s twelve.” She started to cry again, quietly, with her head down. We had lost friends, but not family. We were blessed to be together through this. Colleen had to go through it all alone, only her horses for company. We pulled the twins onto our laps and sat silently for a while.
“What do you need?” I asked. “We happen to have some lettuce, if you’d like a salad …”
“I’d love a salad or anything that’s not dehydrated.” After finishing whatever groceries she had on hand, she’d started with their emergency rations. Most Alaskans kept thirty days’ worth of food on hand in the form of a five-gallon plastic bucket filled with dehydrated meals. We had meals from our own stock, but as long as there was something else, we ate that first. No matter how well you prepare the dehydrated food, it is what it is, something to help you survive.
And it did its job, for Colleen anyway. It kept her alive.
I hoped we made a difference for her. She knew something was terribly wrong, yet she persevered. The human spirit is not so easily defeated. The Dog Musher saw his world taken from him and he couldn’t move past that.
“Do you have a snow machine?” If she didn’t, then she could ride with us. “We live just around the corner, but with the snow, it would be a tough walk.”
“No, but we have a quad with tracks. I can follow you, but not too fast.”
The horses had come up to the fence and the dogs were still barking. It was a little bit of chaos outside as both sides jockeyed for position as if they were going into battle. Or they were opposing sides in a rugby scrum.
We went outside, and there was much yelling and wrestling as we recovered the dogs and got them back into the crates on the sleighs. I went with Colleen as she opened the garage and got into the quad. Four tracks, in the shape of triangles, were where the tires should be. They looked like they’d have good traction and were wide enough to keep the quad on top of the snow.
It started after turning over for about twenty seconds. Ran roughly for another minute, then smoothed out. She slowly turned the steering wheel to exercise the connections. It hadn’t run for over a month and she didn’t want to damage any of the components. I think she realized that this was going to be her primary source of transportation until the spring. The truck in the garage would do her no good with the roads unplowed.
She pulled out and followed me to my sled. No sense in shutting the garage door. There was no heat to keep inside. I put Charles in front of me on my snow machine, and then our little caravan headed out.
Rallying One Survivor
It was approaching lunch time when we made it home, all of eight minutes after we left Colleen’s horse ranch.
We parked our sleds and I stayed outside with the dogs while everyone else went inside. The dogs took care of business quickly as they knew there would be excitement indoors.
We prepared a big salad for Colleen and made moose burgers as the main course, using bread we had gotten fresh from Jo at the resort. We eve
n had a tomato to cut up. Colleen ate like she was starving. She had probably lost weight in the past month, a great deal of weight. Her clothes hung loosely on her.
We finally introduced ourselves while we were eating. We talked about the community at Chena Hot Springs. It was nice to have fresh food. It was nice to know that we weren’t alone.
We settled in after lunch, near the pellet stove. We turned on some music using my cell phone and our Bluetooth speaker. She closed her eyes and disappeared for a while. Not sleeping. She journeyed to another place where there was less pain. We put the twins down for their nap. They looked at us, but after a while, they drifted off into a restful slumber.
Colleen came back to us after a couple of Bob Dylan songs.
“Thank you for lunch,” she started tentatively. “I didn’t know what to do. There was no place to go. My phone was out. No power. We have a wood stove that we usually don’t run, but I used it. We didn’t have much wood, but our neighbors did. I borrowed some of theirs when ours ran out. They aren’t home. No one’s home.” She looked down at her feet, at the dirty socks she was wearing.
“It’s okay,” I began.
“How is it okay?” she interrupted, getting angry.
“It’s okay because it has to be. We have to all keep going until help arrives. I think that will happen after breakup.” Breakup was the term used for the spring thaw. That was when the ice broke apart and the rivers started to flow free again. I assumed that the melting snow would take away most of the radiation. Then help could come and set up a relief station for us. Everything downstream might get contaminated, but not where we were, north of the city.
We hoped that Colleen was on the mend. She still suffered greatly from her loss, but maybe the worst was behind her. In one sense, it had been a month. In another, she’d known the truth for only a single day.
Endure (End Times Alaska Book 1) Page 9
