The door was locked, and Kaine sighed.
It was not the heaviest door on campus, nor was the lock that sophisticated. This does not bode well, mused Kaine. If they had upgraded they would have also upgraded the boiler room.
He put his flashlight in his mouth, lifted his cane with both hands and brought the metal end of it down on the knob. The knob rolled down the hallway and the door swung open.
Leaning back on his cane, he took his flashlight from his mouth to shine it in the room before he walked in.
No, it’s still natural gas, sighed Kaine, and he exhaled a quiet, “Shit.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Marissa, Derek and Sheridan stood in the main room of the manor house. The three stood close to the fireplace for warmth as the cold was enough to cause frost to build up on the glass windows and up the doors.
“There is no sign of anyone from city works,” said Marissa. “At least not this far down the road. The phones are dead and even the emergency stations are out. Now, to prevent jumping to conclusions or panic, it could still be a military training exercise but that excuse is quickly losing its credibility.”
“I’m with Reese on this, Sheri,” Derek pointed out. “This has gone way beyond anything allowed to the military as part of their training—and this is also way beyond an actual military exercise. There are simply no communications of any kind and no power. It’s as if the infrastructure just vanished out from under us.”
“Which means what? The end of the world just happened?” asked Sheridan. “We’re at war and the government just forgot to tell us?”
“Or they were on the way out and grasping at straws to keep control. Think, Sheri, what’s the first thing lost when a government ceases to exist?” Derek asked, an intense expression in his eyes.
“Their ability to maintain infrastructure in outlying areas… the ability to defend territory,” she answered. “Derek, these are not the days of Rome and Byzantium. We have the Internet, phones, mobile phones and radios. The ability to travel hundreds of miles in a matter of hours instead of days. A civilization can’t just fall without anyone noticing.”
“It can—if the news reports aren’t entirely accurate. If the information they’re given isn't true and we get what they report, we wouldn’t know a damn thing,” said Marissa. “Think, Sheri. When Terrence was in Iraq, he saw and told you how easily information can be twisted and manipulated. You know it happens.”
Sheridan looked away and into the fire. For a long, tense moment they were all quiet until Derek broke the silence. “What if—what if civilization, as we know it, is now gone? We shouldn’t be arguing over what is and isn’t possible. We should be planning what we are going to do about it right now and for the future. There is a long, rough winter out there that is breaking all sorts of records as the worst one. We’re still only in December which means there is January, February and March to think about yet.”
“What about burying our dead?” asked Sheridan.
Derek closed his mouth with a snap and looked over at Marissa, motioning for her to step in and say something. Marissa sighed heavily.
“Of course we haven’t forgotten about Terrence,” said Marissa, her voice low and gentle. “But we need to think of the living first.”
“The dead can wait,” pointed out Derek.
Sheridan looked back up and at him. “You’re right, of course. Reese, what is the status of our supplies? I know we won’t have enough but perhaps we can stretch them somehow?”
“Stretch, maybe, but not for that long. We’ll have to venture out and get more supplies at some point. The larger issue is going to be defending what we have. If civilization has fallen, many people out there will be desperate to live and they are not going to be nice about asking for help. They’ll just take what they want,” pointed out Marissa. “There’s a reason they call looting... looting.”
“And with no help from emergency services to prevent it,” added Derek. “We’re on our own if it’s actually happened.”
“Wonderful,” said Sheridan. “So, we need to supply ourselves and keep our supplies from looters. First things first—we need the defences then. I want anything glass, such as windows, boarded up.”
“That won’t really help,” pointed out Marissa.
“Then what will?”
“Taking out the glass and bricking it up with solid timber reinforcement, as well as proper insulation, will do two things. One, it will prevent looters from getting access and, two, it will also conserve heat,” Derek answered, blowing out a breath.
“What about Norse shutters?” asked Sheridan.
“Sorry, what?” asked Derek.
“You know when you see those movies about 'ye old medieval times'? The windows close by closing up wooden doors that swing inward on heavy hinges and bar from the inside like an old fortress gate… only in smaller scale?” asked Sheridan.
“It would be easy enough to build and add to the existing structure,” mused Derek, interest in his tone. “And insulate. Should be more solid than boarding them up. You’d know about those…”
“And we would be able to open them back up later if and when this all blows over,” Sheridan pointed out. “If this is nothing but a scare, it’d be a curious and functional historically correct addition to an already historical English manor… in Canada.”
Marissa snorted in amusement at her goddaughter’s comment. The shutters would just add to the charm of the house if this whole thing was just a scare. Derek hoped it was just a scare—that it was just an exercise. If it was, then all of this was not just only annoying to him for the sake of inconvenience. There were probably so many scared people in the area who had no idea what was going on or what to do. On the other hand, if it was not just a scare then there would be thousands of dead people simply out of a lack of preparedness.
He was not going to let his family be one of them—and he also was not going to let someone else take it all from him just because the police were not there to stop them.
“So, if the world has suddenly come to an end, what are the side issues we need to consider for the near future other than issues with looters and a supply flow?” asked Sheridan. “We also need to keep in mind that without regular supplies we will have to supply our own medicines and deal with our own injuries.”
“Thank God we have a doctor,” said Derek. “Without you, Sheri, we’d be screwed.”
“I’m just one link in this. I can’t deal with this on my own,” she pointed out. “I need those shutters on the windows now. And we also have to think about a way to cook our food, not to mention the food in the freezer.”
“I wouldn’t worry about what’s in the freezer right now. It’s cold enough in here, let alone out there, to keep,” said Marissa. “But cooking it when we need to will cause a problem. We’ll have to move that old wood stove from the barn to here and move the electric one out.”
“No power,” sighed Sheridan.
“Unless—and this is just an idea because there’s nothing we can do about it now—we move a solar panel or ten to the roof and set them up for net metering. That way if civilization hasn’t fallen, you won’t run into the ‘Dammit, the power’s out again’ annoyance,” suggested Derek. “And still be supplying the grid with your extra power.”
“That’s why we bought a few extra panels,” Sheridan chuckled as Derek’s eyebrows rose. “I just haven’t had the time to get them up there.”
“What? Where the hell have you been hiding those?” asked Derek.
“Terrence bought them and put them in the shed,” answered Sheridan, and she sighed heavily. “He never even took them out of the packaging.”
Derek shook his head in disbelief. “Well, all right then. We’ll install those for you, Sheri, when we aren’t in danger of breaking our damn necks. Can we use that massive fireplace for cooking for now?”
“Easily,” answered Sheridan.
“Then we’ll move the furniture around to accommodate,” finished
Marissa. “Now…”
There was a sharp knock on the door, and then the sound of a timid voice. “Hello?”
Marissa’s eyes widened in shock as she spun to face the front door, then she looked pointedly at Derek, whose lips drew themselves into a compressed line. Derek saw Marissa’s concern.
People—an unknown factor—had suddenly just appeared not only on their very doorstep but had walked through their front door. They looked around the corner warily. Two people—one was a woman with hair that had at one point been a fiery red but was now turning silver—and a man that would have made Terrence who had been over six feet tall look small.
“Don’t mean to give you a start,” said the man as he held up his empty hands. “Couldn’t help but notice you have light and warmth where there really isn’t any anywhere else on the road.”
“You must be freezing!” Sheridan exclaimed, ignoring Marissa’s widened eyes and pointed stare at the front door. “Come by the fire and tell us what you’ve seen up the road.”
The two knocked the snow off of themselves as best they could and followed Sheridan the rest of the way into the house.
“I’m Sheridan… this is Marissa and that’s Derek.”
“I’m Tyrell, and this is Helen,” the man introduced as he looked over at Marissa and Derek. “I’m sorry if we just barged in on you, but Helen noticed that the bell didn’t work and knocking wasn’t having much effect.”
“A little hard for a bell to work without power,” agreed Derek, poking Marissa in the ribs.
“The major problem of security has just been painfully made obvious, though,” he pointed out, shrugging as Sheridan looked up. “Not saying that you two are going to be an issue. Actually, it being you instead of someone else not so friendly is a good thing.”
“If you need a hand, I’m up for it,” said Tyrell.
Derek nodded and offered his hand and Tyrell shook it. As Tyrell finished, he turned around from the fire to face Sheridan and the others. Sheridan looked over at Derek and Marissa.
“Well, you’re welcome to stay, of course,” said Sheridan. “If you can help with horses, it will be a good news for my cousin, Shiloh. She will be more than happy to welcome the help in the barns.”
“Barns? As in more than one?” asked Tyrell.
“There are three horse barns,” answered Marissa.
“Is there anything else we can do?” asked Helen. “I’m not much use in a barn.”
“I’m sure there is,” answered Sheridan, and then she sighed. “I didn’t think it would get to this point.” She turned and looked at them sharply. “You said you came from further up the road. Was there any signs of life or even a snow plow?”
“None, and the phones are dead too,” answered Helen.
Derek waited until Marissa led Tyrell and Helen off to the barn to see what help they could offer in exchange for staying.
“At this point we’d best call it for what it is,” began Derek. “With no way to confirm whether we still have government or order, we are on our own and we need to start thinking that way.”
“As much as I hate to admit it... I think you’re right,” agreed Sheridan. “You and Marissa were right—we need defences. Tyrell and Helen may be friendly but the fact that they waltzed right up my driveway and through the front door of my home makes it painfully clear that we need some way to prevent looters or others from doing the same.”
“I have an idea. Since you’re blessed with natural barriers here they may just save us,” began Derek as he laid out his plan.
Sheridan’s farm occupied its own little valley with an escarpment that ran along the north property line. The road, with the river on the east side, cut a climbable path up the cliff. The Vermillion River ran along the east property line before looping around the south and following a line of low mountains further south and was wide and deep. In recent years it rarely froze completely over but this year was an exception.
The property had once been a golf course but Sheridan had snapped up the property for a reasonable price. The northern half had been another horse ranch owned by someone else. A few short years later Sheridan brought that property, too.
Sheridan’s house was on the northern half where the old ranch house had been. The southern fields that formed the old golf course still lay mostly empty.
On the other side of the river was the Whitefish First Nation Indian reserve, and Marissa caught Sheridan staring over the river wistfully. She touched Sheridan’s arm, and her goddaughter shook her head.
“With no help from authority, we’re going to have to be the authority. There are going to be a lot of scared people out there that aren’t road trash. We have an opportunity to start something here instead of watching what’s left of our civilization vanish like a puff in the wind. We can do something very real to drag ourselves out of the dark ages,” he finished.
“Is this what it is?” Sheridan mused, lifting a brow and looking away from the river and at him. “The dark ages?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know.”
“No, I think you’re on to something there,” she pointed out. “Rome was very much like the modern world. Marissa and I have often seen the parallels. The US even modelled their society on it. The White House looks like a Roman villa with its columns, and most of the traditional homes along the east coast had those same Roman columns. But even Rome fell on itself and was reborn. I think, unfortunately, history just has repeated itself.”
“If that’s the case, what are we?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Celtic England before it we called it that, perhaps? After all, it was the remnants of Rome that intermarried and set aside their Roman trappings in Britannia and eventually it became Britain. The ancient reborn into something new built on top of the old.”
“So Rome has fallen, so does Canada?” asked Derek darkly.
“Canada was a colony of Britain, and in many ways still is… Was… who knows until we can confirm that the government either doesn’t exist or has lost grip on the rest of the country. Rome did the same—it simply lost grip on the outlying areas and collapsed on itself,” she answered. “Rome fell, perhaps now its remnant has and we are in the modern equivalent of ancient Britain.”
“If that’s the case, where did you put Terrence’s broadsword?” came Shiloh’s voice as he walked in on the last part of the conversation. “I’m so, so sorry about Terrence, Sheri… What’s this?”
Shiloh looked down at the paper where Derek had drawn a rough sketch of the area and his plans. “An idea I have—if ‘Rome’ has indeed fallen.”
“Oh?” said Sheridan as she watched Derek spread the papers across the table.
Much of it was little better than random scrawls. Sheridan was familiar with the way Derek processed information, especially when he had a plan in mind.
The scrawling notes and scribbled diagrams were hastily drawn and written. Derek’s own hand could not keep up with how fast his ideas came to him when on a roll. This translated into the just barely legible mess he had in the notes early into a project.
“Okay, you need to walk us through this,” said Sheridan, trying to make heads or tails from the notes.
“Right now all I have is what I did to keep myself from being bored silly,” pointed out Derek, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s not really that much. Just ideas at this point.”
“We can tell,” said both his wife and goddaughters.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Derek’s breath caught as the shock of the sub-zero air caught in his lungs, and fogged in the air when he finally managed to exhale as he walked outside. The bottoms of windows were crusted with ice and frost as the panes of glass failed to keep out the cold.
While Sheridan had not specifically asked him to head out and look for her neighbours, it certainly beat the alternative of sitting on his behind as he waited for news.
Jeremy walked around the corner in his heavy winter clothing. He nodded to Derek as he walked by a
nd joined them.
“All right—we’ll be heading across the bridge and to the south first. There’s a small enclave of cabins and houses not too far from here,” said Derek.
“What’s past that?” asked Jeremy.
Derek shook his head. “A campground and marina. It’s normally closed this time of year. I mean, the owner could still be there, but it’s easily ten k’s down and at the very end of the road.”
“No chance they would have wintered there?” asked another.
Derek thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I doubt it. Even before all this the drive down that way was nasty. You needed a four by four to make it and half the time the plow never went that far. I think they shut it down at the first hint of snow—maybe after hunting season ends at the latest—and check on it time to time but after winter sets in it’s pretty much abandoned. Anyone still down there is more than able to handle this by themselves.”
“So, we’re not risking it,” finished Jeremy for him. “I’m guessing we’re going as far as the camps and homes that could be occupied and then we head back.”
Derek led them out into the driveway. Despite the fact that no one was driving because the fuel was simply too difficult to get and too precious to squander, the driveway had been cleared of snow. His breath frosted in the air and he rubbed his hands together in a vain effort to keep them warm. “Damn, it’s cold out here.”
Jeremy was hopping up and down and shifting from side to side in same effort. “Oh my God, I think a certain part of my anatomy just shattered.”
Derek snorted and shook his head. He walked over to his SUV and slid into the driver’s seat. Jeremy moved over the front passenger side and got in.
When Derek pulled out and headed down the south road, he came to two conclusions.
One, I was crazy to drive here in the first place.
And, moments later, Two, I still have no idea how Sheridan’s little Smart Car managed to drive from Lively to Panache Lake Road and then down to the farm in at least a foot of snow, even if it had still been loose and fluffy.
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