Grass filled the cracks in the road and some of the culverts had collapsed along the side but the ride remained an easy one. By the time they reached the old highway, a two-lane side road that had once been the main highway, the sun had barely even risen into the sky.
The Fire Hall was a welcome sight and Derek mused at how easy it had been at this time of year compared to the winter.
“Hard to believe we survived as long as we did in there,” said Emilie.
Derek, and Zachary, kept their eyes on it fully expecting trouble but none came. It was completely deserted. With a sigh, Derek said, “Come on, let’s see how far we can get.”
They rode past the Fire Hall and up the old highway instead of the new highway. The old highway was more likely to run across smaller settlements full of people of similar mind to Sheridan. At least that was what they hoped.
We’ll need to trade, realized Derek. A lot. Trading with neighbours will be crucial even more than when trade meant getting things, and sending things, overseas. No one community can have everything and trading between would mean more choices for all of us.
“Are we really back to the old days before the time of cars?” asked Marissa, and when he both shrugged and shook his head slightly he saw her raise an eyebrow.
Uh oh, I know that look, he thought. It comes slightly before her asking if I’m all right. Truthfully, I have no idea.
“Kind of funny how it all cycled around and came back to bite us in the proverbial rear,” he answered.
“No kidding,” said Abigail. “I never—not once—thought that I’d see something like this.”
“I’m remembering a conversation with Sheridan a few years ago when she still lived in town and planned to bike everywhere—and by bike I don’t mean a motorcycle,” said Derek quietly. “I made light of it. Told her that a professional needed a car.”
“She didn’t dispute that part of it, if I remember correctly,” grinned Marissa. “I remember that particular argument because I heard all the way upstairs. She said, where she was living downtown, that a bike made more sense because of parking and you told her that she was soft in the head. I think it was a good thing both her Dad and I were there to keep it from going farther than that.”
Derek winced and Abigail looked over at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Oh, do tell,” said Emilie. “I didn’t get the impression that she could argue.”
“She can,” snorted Derek. “When you finally hit a nerve.”
“Like calling her soft in the head,” pointed out Marissa. “You know exactly how quickly her laid back nature will turn into a hurricane if you say that to her, or around her.”
Derek grimaced and then sighed, “Now’s not the time to remind me of those little spells when I’m same way.”
Derek had also once thought her the same for being into historical re-enactment and building her house the way she had. But back then I also shrugged it off as that being what made her unique. Now, though, I’m really very, very glad that she built her house the way she wanted and also collected the resources and items she now owned while still involved in that re-enactment club…
He turned to look up and to the east.
“It’s pretty,” said Marissa. “Like an old road in Ireland.”
“It is pretty,” agreed Zachary, with a heavy sigh. “The problem being there’s no sign of anyone having been out here at all.”
“We can’t be the only survivors of this,” Emilie said. “There has to be others… somewhere.”
“The winter was extremely cold this year,” said Derek. “I know we looked in the immediate area of the farm for people we could help and bring out of the cold, unfortunately…”
“I think we’re looking at it being fairly obvious that around ninety percent of those in the area froze to death over the winter,” suggested Zachary. “If the same rate of attrition had spread elsewhere then the possibility of finding others is kind of slim.”
“Maybe others did the same as Sheridan and Terrence?” asked Marissa. “Built a home that wasn’t so dependent on the grid?”
“Entirely possible,” conceded Zachary, as he looked over at Derek. “I can tell you that the city probably fared worse as ‘off grid’ living was practically non-existent. Looting and crime would have exploded without any way for the police to gain control or stop it.”
Not that I’m going to admit this—because she’d never let me forget it—but Reese was right. Going into the city is a suicide mission but it is also the only place I could think of that will have the information I need, realized Derek. But… all that will be moot if we don’t reach Lively.
He knew from experience that according to Google Maps Whitefish was only a short distance away. It was perhaps two to five minutes away by car but walking it—even on horseback—took just the early part of the morning.
The tiny town was deserted and there were absolutely no signs of anyone having survived the winter. Zachary was swearing vehemently as they rode through. “If anyone had survived they would have seen us and come out by now,” said Zachary.
Derek shrugged. “Might be hiding—not sure if we’re friendly or not,” he answered but he looked around – the trap at George’s still fresh in his mind. It was not a mistake he intended on repeating. “Check the houses. If… if no one’s survived, there could be something we could use.”
The first house was deserted, but it showed signs of being that way for years. As he looked around, he realized that there really were not that many houses to begin with. As soon as the first horse passed that house, the crack of a gunshot broke the silence.
“That’s far enough!” yelled a voice. “I don’t know what you want, but you won’t find it here!”
“We’re not going to hurt you!” yelled back Derek. “We didn’t think anyone had survived here and we’re just passing through.”
For a few minutes there was no answer and he had the feeling the person—which he could not figure was male or female—was mulling over whether he was telling the truth or not. “Prove you’re not.”
“How in hell are we supposed to do that?” asked Emilie. “And how are we supposed to know you aren’t?”
“Are you from the shop down the road?” another voiced drifted over and sounded like it was from behind one of the houses to his left.
“No,” answered Derek. “From the farm down Panache Lake Road.”
Again, there was a long silence and then a few people came out from around the far houses. Judging by how thin they were and how their clothes hung from their bodies, the winter had been far harsher here.
“You look really well fed for this winter,” said the first voice and now that Derek could see him he saw that the young man was no older than Shiloh’s son.
Swearing under his breath he realised that not two minutes away from the Fire Hall had been a small community missed by everyone. It had been completely cut off over the winter.
“We were lucky,” said Derek. “How many did you lose this winter?”
The young man shook his head. “Too many. None of the older ones survived and the really little didn’t either.” With a bitter laugh he turned back to Derek. “Hell, most of my age group didn’t either.”
“I’m sorry,” said Derek. “If we’d known, we would have come and helped you.”
“How?” asked another.
With a nod from Marissa, Derek continued. “There’s a farm to the south on Panache Lake Road. Get to it and tell them Derek sent you. If you decide to stay, Sheridan will make sure you survive.”
“How will we tell this farm from any others?” asked the young man, relaxing a bit.
“Oh, you’ll be able to tell,” said Zachary with a chuckle. “It looks almost like civilization didn’t fall there... it’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.”
The small group looked at each and from the look of it they were holding a quick non-verbal vote. Finally, their leader nodded. “All right—we’ll take your advice. You said we were to a
sk for Sheridan?” he asked.
“The rest of who’s there has taken to calling her their queen… unless we find signs of the government elsewhere she’s as close to real government you’ll see,” said Zachary. “What’s left of Canada will live on there.”
“And who are you?” asked one of the young women in the group.
“Constable Zachary Radzinsky of the Greater City of Sudbury Police Service,” he answered then shook his head. “That is, if there still even is a service.”
The leader of the group looked from one of them to the other and said, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to check it out at least. You can stay here.”
“You’re going to leave us?” asked the other one, shocked.
“If you stay here how long, will you survive off of what you’ve managed to find?” asked Emilie. “From the look of you, all I’d guess not long. What have you got to lose? Take two hours and walk there. At least the resources in between are better than here.”
A third one in their group said, “She’s got a point.”
The young woman sighed and threw her hands up in the air. “Fine,” she conceded. “We’ll go.”
“Good,” Derek said as he turned the horse back to the road and east again.
“Wait a second, you can’t be seriously thinking of going further up that road!” said the first one. “That’s where the raiders came from.”
“What raiders?” asked Zachary, suddenly interested.
“Back in the winter, there were these raiders that came down the road,” answered the young woman. “They didn’t come back after they were through here and I have no idea where they went, but they took everything and kept going.”
“Lovely bit of news” mused Abigail as she looked over at Derek.
Derek sighed heavily. He had known this was not going to be easy but also dealing with regular raids from bands of looters was not something he had counted on.
“Do we continue?” asked Marissa.
“Yes,” answered Derek after thinking about it for a moment. “We do.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
If they thought the journey to Whitefish—even though the journey was short—was lonely, the road between Whitefish and Naughton was far worse. The highway between the two towns normally always had traffic. But now it was somehow worse than Panache Lake Road.
“I was hoping this stretch of road would be a bit better than the one between the Fire Hall and Sheridan’s farm,” said Zachary as he slid off the back of the horse. “But it’s actually worse.”
“I don’t know,” said Derek quietly. “It could just be because we were expecting more signs of life here, not like on the road to Sheridan’s farm.”
“Which was never that great a road to begin with,” said Marissa.
“Exactly—it’s always been a bit of a patchwork quilt more than a road,” agreed Derek. “Granted, this road wasn’t that much better, as I remember it, but it was still better and more travelled than Panache Lake Road.”
Perhaps it was simply because that was how it felt to Derek since the road to Sheridan’s farm was a side road and never had really been well kept. Not like the highway. Finding the highway in the same condition with grass in the cracks and the potholes was more of a shock because he had honestly hoped for different. Seeing this deflated his sense of hope faster than the side road had.
“What else is eating you?” asked Zachary, looking at Derek, and the older of the two men sighed heavily.
“I guess I could write off seeing Panache Lake Road as it was never a main road anyway—not travelled like this one. The quiet was expected…” Derek trailed off for a moment as he looked at the small, collapsed bridge in front of them. “But seeing this road like this—it just really hits home, y’know? This is it… what we suspected really is true.”
“With our terrain, and the tendency for wash outs, no city works may mean no roads,” pointed out Emilie. “The big cities will be cut off from each other.”
“It kind of is,” answered Abigail as she let the sandy soil run through her fingers. “The whole region is full of low rocky hill chains that formed the mountainous bowl of the valley.”
“One big divot on top of a mountain, filled with sand,” finished Derek. “Some places look green—and they are—but it can turn like a sandy desert if one thing is thrown out of kilter…”
He looked at Zachary as he realized the other man was confused. “How long have you lived here?” asked Marissa, realizing at the same time that Zachary could not have been around long if he only knew what the city looked like now.
“Not very long, just moved up here around a year ago,” he answered.
I just explained to him last month why the city’s rocks are so black… he thought it was natural,” grinned Emilie.
The reason for this was simple—just over a century before Sudbury had either chopped it all down to fuel the smelters… Or the smelters thick smoke had choked out the life turning the area into the infamous moon rock of blackened granite and desert, sandy pits. For nearly sixty years their main landmark had been the destroyed forests with nothing but burnt stumps and stark, black slag piles.
The only thing that had ever seemed to grow was the blue berries.
“Oh my God,” laughed Abigail. “Hello, stranger.”
It had taken years of dedicated hard work by the citizens to, first, change the way the smelting plants spewed their smoke and then, second, to replant and regrow the landscape. The fact that the trees were still so young—less than a quarter century old—was testament to the former destruction of the land and its eventual reclamation.
The land was almost returned to its former glory before the roasting pits and smelters but signs of the former desolation were still easy to spot.
The trees were still smaller, still stunted. There were still large tracts of sand pits although they were slowly being reclaimed by trees and other growth. Rivers were cleaner.
“I had noticed it seemed somewhat flat, or stunted, until Capreol and Onaping,” agreed Zachary. “And then, once you’re over the edge it’s like everything falls away off the other side—like we’re on top of the mountain but the mountain lost its top.”
“Well, that’s why,” said Marissa.
“Long story short—that’s a pretty good way of thinking about it,” agreed Derek. “What’s in that ‘bowl’ is a mix of rock and swamp… the water pools where it can and doesn’t escape really easy, but that’s not why the rock is exposed or why the trees are short… or why some places are the opposite.”
“Before the Superstack in Copper Cliff, the only way to smelt the metal was to cook the ore in roasting yards—they cut down all the trees and then literally roasted the landscape. All the black is the result from, first, the roasting yards and then the old smelters which then coated the landscape with smoke and choked out everything else,” explained Emilie. “Not twenty, or ten years, ago there were no trees, no anything but black rock and sand.”
“So, what happened?” asked Zachary.
“First, they built the Superstack, which only served to take what was spilling out of the smelters and send it up into the upper atmosphere… and spread it around further,” said Abigail, ignoring the other’s stare, and she shrugged. “Finally, with better environmental laws and regulation, it’s better. Not great, but better… and there was also a re-greening and tree planting effort everywhere around the city. What you see is over twenty years of hard work to make it like it is now.”
“Versus a landscape that only seemed to be able to grow blueberries,” pointed out Marissa. “Behind our house it was just sand for years… sand and blueberries, the occasional tree.”
Derek continued to poke around the collapsed bridge and then sighed.
“The ground isn’t stable here,” said Zachary. “We’ll have to find another way around.”
“Damn it,” swore Derek. “Well, we knew that it was going to take longer than it would have before.”
“Did you suspect it would be this bad?” asked Marissa.
Derek shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I really should have, though.”
“There was no way you could have known,” said Abigail. “I really should have known—I came down the river this way on that raft.”
“I still can’t believe you did that.” Emilie pointed out. “Going down the Vermillion is a risky move on a good day—but during flood season? Crazy.”
Abigail shrugged, “Didn’t have much choice.”
“No point crying over spilt milk now,” Marissa said. “We should find a way around… unless you want to go back?”
Derek shook his head, making a cutting gesture with his hand in negation. “No, we find a way around.”
* * * * *
One of the biggest lecture halls at Laurentian University could just only fill with two hundred people. The problem was, the minute word got around that the city’s mayor had survived and somehow made it to the university everyone wanted to hear what she had to say.
This meant that not everyone would fit in the formal hall.
Kaine had the meeting moved to the Grand Salon which would fit anyone who wished to hear her speak. Instead of the formal lecture hall that the Fraser was, this hall was far less formal, especially considering it usually served as the university cafeteria. One part also overlooked the golf club which sat behind the campus.
The hall was full of students who had been trapped here as well as the faculty. As a result, they had continued as if life never changed even though the challenges of doing so had made all their lives difficult.
She knew they were hoping for good news.
Unfortunately, she did not have it.
Without power to the Great Hall, she would have to project her voice as it was not amplified. Shouting would only warp the sound and make her unable to be understood.
“Most of you know don’t know who I am,” Lescelle began. “But you know what I represent so I won’t waste precious time with introductions.”
After Oil Page 28
