Huddled around an electric oven was a family of four. In their desperation they had turned it into a wood stove.
Their bodies frozen in the exact same position in which they had died.
Their deaths likely came from hypothermia but since they had tried to burn something inside the electric oven was just as possible to have been carbon monoxide poisoning. It was heartbreaking especially since the one child, the eldest of the two, could not have been older than eight. Derek cleared his throat and looked at Helen again as they silently moved past them and to the fridge. It felt wrong to rifle through their cupboards with their silence watching them, but to leave something there that could otherwise feed the living would have been a waste.
“Who puts a can of paint under a kitchen counter?” wondered Helen aloud.
Derek shrugged his shoulders and while he checked the bedrooms, she checked the living room, den and bathrooms.
There was nothing useful for them to pick over. “Take a note of the house,” he said when they returned to the garage. “We’ll have to send burial teams when the weather isn’t as bad to cremate the dead.”
As the last of the light from the sun faded in the twilight, the sounds of the animals and birds along with the wind outside faded. Not even crickets dispelled the frozen silence.
Once the surroundings grew quiet, they stopped their conversation, almost as though something held them quiet. He could not put it into words if he tried but it was not fear. At least it was not for him.
The only thing that broke the silence was the crackling of the fire.
It was as if all that remained of the world—even though they knew that just over the ridge was Sheridan and the farm full of survivors—was the small space in that garage. It was humbling and, while terror wasn’t applicable, there was a certain amount of trepidation of what the next days could possibly hold.
Logic said that they could not be the last of everything. Someone else—somewhere else—had to have also survived this but where they were and how they did may never come to light. They could be the next town over and no one would know until someone got curious enough to range out and find out if it were true.
It was humbling to see just how large the world really truly was. Life before…
Derek stopped himself at that very thought.
…Life before… life before what? What exactly had happened to end everything as decisively as it had?
Was it nuclear war and now they would have to deal with fallout and nuclear winter on top of the typical Canadian winter? Did a virus wipe out most of humanity?
He discounted these since there would have been some hint even among the survivors had that been the case. It had to have been something significant to bring civilization to its knees but he could not figure out what it could possibly have been.
Derek thought about the weeks leading up to all of this.
Gas prices had been going up sharply—this had been all over the news. But it meant little. Prices always did go up and fluctuate around. It was one of the main reasons that cars like the Smart car and Tesla had come out as an alternative to petroleum based fuel. It also was not the first time gas prices had spiked as the seventies had been infamous for a rather large spike in gas prices, as had the early 2000’s.
He almost dismissed it.
But something set its hooks in the back of his mind and refused to let go.
Gas prices had not been the only hint of trouble. Granted, much of the furor over going solar and other alternatives was everyone who cared about it had been up in arms about carbon in the atmosphere and other greenhouse effects. But where before it had been mostly token efforts lately had turned into a major industry.
So major that some companies well known for oil and other fossil fuel exploration had turned to alternative sources of fuel and re-branded themselves as the purveyors of ‘energy’ versus oil or gas.
Derek sat bolt upright, nearly knocking himself out on a hanging tool on the workbench. “It’s the end of oil…” he winced as he spoke, his voice loud in the silence.
The others jumped, startled. “What in the name of Christ, Derek?” asked Shiloh.
“What brought all of this—” he motioned around the room, but they knew he meant more than that. “—on in the first place.”
“The end of oil?” asked Helen, vaguely disbelieving as she listened. “Why did you even… what gave you that idea?”
“Think about the news lately,” he continued. “Gas prices soaring to unreal levels. Natural gas and the cost to heat a home at the ridiculous point… Some people even gave up on their gas furnaces and were using electric space heaters because even hydro was less expensive. If you had an oil furnace, forget it. I worked for a solar panel system installer—we had more calls for panels so that people could net meter… We had far more calls than we could sometimes handle. We had insurance sales people jumping over to our industry because it was the hot ticket to sell.”
“So… we just ran out and the world toppled?” asked Shiloh. “That doesn’t make any sense. The government would have warned us it was going to happen.”
“Shiloh, you worked for Ontario Shared Services while in school… would they really?” asked Marissa.
Shiloh looked down at the ground. “It’s not as if they’d go out of their way to not tell people. Well…at least the government workers and office administration wouldn’t. If they had the information to give they’d give it.”
“…But?” asked Helen.
"Well, I don’t work for them anymore so I wouldn’t have heard anything anyway. I can tell you that with bureaucracy even if they had the information there were always approvals needed and, well… It’s not that they’d try to not get the information out, but whether it would be useful by the time anyone got it is the real question. And as I said, they’d have to know about it first. Can’t supply a public service information bulletin without the information in the first place,” she answered. “If all this were true and the government knew it wasn’t ‘the government’ that would know per se. Just those in office with that decision making power to pass the information along.”
“Would there be a report somewhere?” asked Derek.
He knew Shiloh’s point having dealt with the government more than once. He knew, however, that the others didn’t understand. Helen looked particularly confused as did Marissa.
“Okay, say your theory is right. If there was a report written that our resources in oil and natural gas were about to run out and we were all, globally, at that critical point… then, yes, there would be,” answered Shiloh. “However not all government offices would know that even existed in the first place. Government and the bureaucracy just don’t work like that.”
“How do they work then?” asked Helen, still confused and her brows crinkled.
“Well, there would have to have been a study or a report on something that someone noticed. They'd write a report and send it to a supervisor in whatever office they were working in for whatever ministry that office was part of. That one report would have to cross a few hands to finally arrive at the Minister of whatever office in question; and it would be up to that minister to decide what to do with it. He or she could either sit on it and not pass it along at all… Or it could get sent to a committee of yet more ministers to decide on what to do about it,” answered Shiloh. “Once they had finally decided, it would be then sent to yet another committee to decide on what policy needed instituting and they would then create a policy. Only at that point would word trickle back down the same channels through to the various ministries that need to know. If a public service announcement was deigned necessary, only then would a bulletin get released—after it had been sent for drafting, anyway.”
“The problem is that we don’t know what ministry would have known and if they even did,” mused Derek.
“And what’s the point of worrying about it now?” asked Marissa. “It’s too late.”
“She has a point,” agreed Hel
en, as they turned to Derek. “Why bring it up?”
“Because if we know what caused civilization to topple we know what we’re working with and approximately what it will take to survive in the future—as well as what others are going to be eyeing for supplies.”
He did not say that Sheridan, as their new interim leader, would need to know why ‘Rome’ had fallen so that she would not base her new bastion of civilisation on shaky foundations. After all, to be informed was to be forewarned.
“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” said Shiloh. “We may as well focus on the mission at hand and tell Sheridan your theory when we get back.”
“Theory?” asked Derek dryly.
“Well, it’s not as if we can prove it—even it does make sense,” she answered.
He nodded and silence descended on them again. Even though it was quiet enough not to need it, they agreed on setting a watch and Derek decided he should take that first watch. His mind refused to let go and he needed time to think and process his conclusion. Sitting a watch would be perfect to allow him to do that.
* * * * *
Kaine stepped into the athletics centre and the first thing he noticed was that his heavy winter coat was no longer necessary. The heat in the athletics centre was half passive solar and geo-thermal. The electricity was supplied through the only rooftop solar panels on the entire campus and the flat roof on the north side had been built to be a natural rooftop garden.
The lack of control over heat or cooling in this building gave it the exact opposite problem as the other building Kaine had found himself in.
He stripped off the jacket and unwound his scarf from around his neck.
The pool had been drained, and all traces of algae scrubbed off. The tiles were so clean that they looked as new as the day the pool had first been opened. Kaine nodded in approval as he looked over at the student he had left in charge.
“Well done,” said Kaine. “This is perfect.”
“What’s next?” asked one of the students.
“We build catwalks in a grid pattern over the pool deck, with safety rails. Build as many levels of these catwalks as we have dive platforms—we can use the platforms as a way up to these catwalks,” answered Kaine.
“What are we building?” asked one of the students.
Kaine motioned for the small group to follow him to the wall, and he unfurled his plan on the wall as he used tape to hold the sheets of paper in place. The students looked from him, to the plans, and then back again.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said one of the students. “How are we going to build all that?”
“In phases,” answered Kaine. “Build the first level first, and get the first level up and running. And then we can begin expanding upward. We may not even need to go all the way up.”
On the plans was a network of vertical hydroponics, using the pool as the resource the plants would use to grow. Each level was another crop, and another way to harvest and care for the plants. The catwalks would be built in a grid pattern. Four primary pathways, and a central platform through the centre across the shortest width of the pool, would be four feet wide on each walk. Secondary pathways cut through and networked to the primary pathways.
Kaine planned for an eventual six levels of hydroponic growing. Sun tunnels, a type of tube skylight, and fibre optics would bring necessary sunlight to the lower levels.
“I’m more concerned on where we’re going to find all the stuff we need to build this,” said another student. “The first level we can scavenge for, but as we get higher and need the more specialized stuff… I have no idea.”
“Again, we don’t need to do all of this at once,” said Kaine. “So long as we manage to get the first level finished, and producing, we will not starve.”
“We can fish the lake, too,” said one of the students. “Forage in the woods, perhaps even dig up the quad and plant other stuff in the spring.”
Kaine nodded, and then he grinned. “All good plans that we can put into action,” he said, and he clapped his hands. “Now, class, that will be your homework. Find those resources and bring them here. We’ll move to the next phase right after you do that.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sheridan looked out over the balcony to the chaos below her. Derek had been only gone for a day and already those who had looked to him for answers had gone from being able to deal with Rick to wondering when he was going to come back.
And arguments were beginning to start on who would do what task.
She whistled over the din. “What is going on here?” she asked.
This did not help as the din only erupted again. She held up a hand and shouted, “Quiet!”
Thankfully that had the effect of bringing the din to a sudden and complete silence.
“Rick, you first. What the hell is going on down here?”
Rick took a breath and stepped forward. “We, ah, can’t seem to come to an agreement on whose job it is to keep the roads clear, now that they actually are clear.”
“Tell me this argument isn’t about who’s on first?” she asked.
No one was able to answer her.
She asked again. “So, what did you come up with?” the room simply erupted into shouting and arguing again. She whistled again and they quieted. “Okay, listen,” she began. “I don’t mind doing this democratically, but clearly we need to know who has the most experience and ability to lead as a foreman for each individual task. Someone who can do that job in their stead if, for some reason, they can’t.”
“What do you suggest we do, Sheri?” asked Rick.
“If we need to, we are going to run our own government until we're shown inarguable proof that the proper government that we all voted in at the last election is still in power. Until then we’re it. Now, that means we need departments and we need to work for those departments. Obviously each department has to work with the other at some point. We're a bit too few to avoid others all the time, so… here is what we are going to do—” She took a breath and then continued. “Each department, or whatever you want to call them, is as we originally split into. We will all nominate who is to lead that department and vote within it for that leader. That way, at least nominally, each department agrees on a leader or a foreman that they agree is the most suited for the job.”
There was some grumbling at this, but it appeared that they all split off into those areas and very quickly bent to the task at hand. Sheridan let her head sink to her hands as Jeremy came up behind her, massaging the tension from her shoulders. She looked at him strangely, and moved away.
He sighed. “I didn’t mean anything by that. You’re more of a sister to me like you are to your cousin.”
“Let’s keep it that way,” she said, looking back over the breezeway.
“A bit of a war zone down there, wasn’t it?” he asked.
“A bit,” she confirmed. “This is not going to be easy.”
“Did you honestly think it would be?” he asked.
“No, but I also didn’t expect it to be nearly impossible either. I expected that people would want to work together… especially since it’s work together or die. Literally… no need to be dramatic on that statement at all,” she replied.
He grunted in agreement. “At least you whipped them into some sort of order.”
“For however long it lasts until I need to do it again,” she replied.
* * * * *
The next morning Derek and his team set back out just as dawn broke over the horizon. The horses were restless at this point and eager to get moving as if they knew another day of riding was ahead. This time everyone was on their horse far easier, even if from flat on the ground, and ready to go in minutes.
The second day was no quicker than the first even though they had figured out the trick to getting around the snow drifts.
Like in a desert, those drifts moved, shifted and were always changing. They were not as high as a dune in the Sahara as the sun had a tendenc
y to melt the snow. They were high enough to create a hardened crust on top and loose snow would blow and settle, starting the cycle again.
Shiloh had brought special leggings for the horses to prevent the sharp edges of the ice from scratching and cutting into their legs. This meant the horses could plow through the snow with very little issue. The team paused while applying the leggings before they moved on, then taking it slow for the horses’ sake.
Finally, at midday, they reached the Fire Hall and pulled up short.
There were definite signs of life around it with tracks in the snow and near the entrances. The only question was how happy those inside would be to see them and how wary they would be. They cautiously rode up to the parking lot, which appeared tamped down by someone's repeated pacing. Derek took a rock and knocked on the side door. The people inside probably were wary of strangers. At least if they did not surprise them, it could help smooth over any rocky beginnings caused by just showing up unannounced. Granted, with no communications, there was no way to warn them they were coming.
Their answer came from above them. “Where in the name of hell did you come from?” asked a voice from the roof.
“My cousin has a farm up Panache Lake Road,” answered Shiloh.
“I’m guessing the one with horses,” said the same voice, a man, and the tone sounded like he was being a bit facetious.
“Yes,” answered Shiloh.
Derek looked at the door and noted that nothing appeared to be broken into. “I’m guessing by the fact that the doors are actually locked and there’s no sign of break and enter that you’re someone who actually works here.”
“Yeah, I am,” he answered. “Constable Zachary Radzinsky, Greater Sudbury Police Service.”
“Derek Moss, Dr. Shiloh Wither, Marissa Moss and Helen Mitchell,” Derek introduced his team.
Radzinsky thought for a long moment and then looked from Shiloh to Derek and back again. “Wither… as in that huge horse ranch up the road?”
After Oil Page 13
