Winter Kill - War With China Has Already Begun

by Gene Skellig

  A loose external shutter was rattling in the strong winds outside as extra chairs for the weekly briefing were being set out in the large living room. Today the focus was on climate change, with Zlata getting ready to give a Power-Point presentation on the latest data.

  Everybody was interested, since the last few months had seen some very strange weather. When snow began falling in August, it was the first such summer snowfall in local history.

  Danny had been worried about Uncle Casey, who had not returned from his visit to the old Fire Chief down in Qualicum Beach. The forest had been bleaker than ever that day, with a dark grey sky made that much more dismal by the falling wet snow. Danny was careful not to cross the highway; the SOPs were very clear about unauthorized travel outside of the Callaghan area of influence. After checking the roadways and other more commonly used paths from the HOTH to town, Danny had checked the deer tracks along the south side of the highway.

  When he found strange drag-marks along one trail, Danny realized that someone was dragging themselves along or perhaps crawling on hands and knees. When he found Casey laying face down in a puddle, Danny radioed in his coordinates and requested assistance. While he waited, Danny applied what little First Aid he knew, talking out-loud to remind himself of the procedures.

  “A. B. C. Airways. Breathing. Circulation. Casey, are you breathing?” Danny said, as he leaned down to listen. He put one hand on Casey’s cold, clammy forehead and used the other to lift Casey’s jaw, tilting the head back to open the airway. Then he used a finger to gently pry open Casey’s mouth. It was full of pine needles and mud. Danny scooped out what he could, and decided that Casey was not breathing.

  “Fuck it!” Danny exclaimed, after failing to find a pulse, and went right to CPR, which Casey had taught everybody in the First Aid lectures in the first weeks after the war started.

  After a few minutes of cycling between chest compressions and artificial respiration Danny was rewarded by Casey coughing profusely and starting to breathe on his own. Danny checked again and could feel that his uncle had a pulse. Danny grabbed Casey’s left arm and knee, and pulled the large man over onto his side, into the recovery position. Then he took off his own jacket and laid it over Casey for warmth.

  Danny then got out a pen-flare from his packsack and radioed that he was sending up a candle. He fired the pen-flare through a small gap in the forest cover. A few hundred meters away, Manfred Vogel was leading a group of rescuers along the same deer path that Danny had used. Miles Callaghan had been watching for the flare and saw the bright burst of red light through the dense forest. The rescue party soon found them.

  Once they got Casey back to the infirmary in the HOTH, they stripped off his cold, wet clothes and warmed him gently. JJ and Manfred headed out to retrieve Dr. Pizarski from the medical station that had been set up in the Community Centre. Dr. Pizarski treated Casey’s four cracked ribs resulting from Danny’s exuberant chest compressions.

  Casey had imagined that he heard someone calling his name only moments before graying-out and falling on his face. His last memory was the taste of mud as he choked in the puddle. Danny had most certainly saved Casey’s life.

  Casey’s mother was constantly at his side during his convalescence, as much as to be there when Dr. Pizarski came to check on Casey, as to watch over her son. As Casey began to recover he recognized the look in his mother’s eyes; something was going on between Grandma Callaghan and old Dr. Pizarski.

  Now, almost four weeks after Casey’s brush with death, the wet snow had changed to persistent dry snow. The daytime highs were no warmer than minus five C, with overnight lows down to minus fifteen. Zlata could not explain the extremely rapid cooling on the West Coast. She had expected the temperature to fall more gradually after the war. She needed more data.

  What little they could learn from the broadcasts that Geoff and Manfred were monitoring on the radio nets did not give a clear overall picture. Zlata had taken the initiative and told Geoff and Manfred to ask other stations to report temperatures, humidity, wind direction and speed on a daily basis. She plotted this information on print-outs of weather charts. Zlata was not a meteorologist but she was a climate scientist and had the help of Geoff Neumann’s Air Force training in meteorology. Now Zlata was ready to report her findings.

  “Today we’re going to focus on the climate changes we are seeing and what this means for our future. Once we’re done, we’ll break into four planning groups. Casey will lead group A, Amy will lead group B, Geoff will lead group C, and JJ will lead group D. I’m telling you this now so that you can take notes or ask questions during the briefing and be ready to start on the planning right away.

  The main theme for all planning groups is the impact of the changed climate on the assigned subject areas,” Zlata explained. Geoff got up from his seat near the laptop and projector that were situated on a card table. The Power Point presentation was viewed on a large white wall of the Great Room. Geoff moved to an easel off to one side and flipped the first large sheet of paper to reveal a list of names assigned to each planning group.

  Zlata continued, “Casey’s group A, with Nora as assistant leader, will focus on the likely impact on surrounding neighbours including the Ring Families, Parksville and Qualicum Beach, and the Sunshine Coast in general. Don’t get lost in the details. Just come up with general conditions and any advice that needs to get passed around.” Zlata paused, as people looked to the easel where the names under Group A were listed. The Mission Statement was presented in Geoff’s clear, military printing.

  “Amy’s Group B, with Jillian as assistant Leader, will look at HOTH systems as they relate to the colder weather. Focus on the impact of heavy snow, increased energy consumption, hydroponic operations, maintenance of the helical wind power and diesel generators, and other integral HOTH systems.

  Geoff’s Group C, with Tanya as assistant Leader, will focus on the HOTH Battle Rhythm of personnel rotations, chores, rest cycles and “Assigned Tasks”. The intent here is to adjust the work allocation and degree of effort assigned to everybody.

  Finally, JJ’s group D, with Danny as assistant Leader, will focus on security routines,” she said.

  Up until now, Danny had been an “also ran”, participating in group discussions but had never been given much of a role in decision making. It was JJ who had suggested that Danny be given increased responsibility. The men relied upon for security had taken well to Danny’s role as shift-manager down in the Gate House. That he was a Callaghan family insider was not counted against him as he had a toughness and demeanor that the truckers respected.

  “If there are no questions, I’ll get started on the Climate briefing,” said Zlata.

  “What about Roger, Duncan and Andy?” Blaine asked, referring to truck drivers whose names were not on the lists.

  “Roger asked to be left on Sentry. He doesn’t like doing planning discussions. JJ, Andy and you, Blaine, will have to rotate coverage at the Gate House in order to participate,” Geoff replied, beating Zlata to the punch. “And Duncan will stay camped out up at the South OP for the rest of his 3-day stint,” Geoff went on, referring to the big Scotsman who preferred to spend a few days camped out in the OP that overlooked the HOTH from above. He amused himself by reminiscing about his days with the British Army or his boyhood in the Scottish highlands.

  Duncan was particularly moody, ever since the loss of his best friend in the raid on the Walker Gang. JJ, Danny, Duncan and two others had gone after Constable Walker and the other men who had tried to capture Casey. Duncan had piped up about the lack of planning, but had been over-ruled by JJ and Danny who were very angry about Constable Walker’s attempt to capture Casey. While they had surprised the Walker gang, the ensuing gunfight was a draw. One or two of Walker’s men were hit, while Duncan’s buddy Rory was fatally wounded in the skirmish.

  The group had barely made it back to Callaghan territory after they had tried to sneak up on the Lodge occupied by Walker and his thugs. Rory
died painfully and, from Duncan’s point of view, for no good reason. It was a harsh reminder that Casey’s SOPs existed for a reason and should be followed.

  JJ was severely reprimanded when Casey learned of the fiasco, but his role as Security Lead was not diminished. It was clear to Casey and even to Duncan that JJ took his failure to heart. He would follow the SOPs in the future and listen to Duncan, Geoff and others with military experience.

  Seeing no other questions, Zlata started her presentation while Geoff ran the slide show. “The long term climate forecast we received from the Emergency Alert Service was mostly accurate. We did see the increased humidity and temperatures in the first six to eight weeks after the war, and the heavy rains and flooding they had forecast. Then the cooling started in August with that first wet snowfall when Casey got hurt,” Zlata said, looking at Casey with the concern she still felt for his health. “And then it got really cold, when the rain showers became heavy snow in the last two weeks.” Zlata completed the background summary, nodding to Geoff to advance the slide.

  “Here is the current weather pattern. For those of you who don’t know all the symbols, I’ll walk you through it. This is the 850-millibar weather chart. Normally it would apply to weather at 1,500 meters, or 5,000 feet. But, with the increased atmospheric pressure caused by the billions of tons of dust and smoke added to the atmosphere, the 850 millibar level is now more like 1,200 meters, or 4,000 feet. It’s still a good altitude to see the major trends, however.

  As you can see, the upper winds are coming to us off the Coast Mountains, northeast of here, basically from Whistler Mountain. This is the new normal, with winds being more than 60 degrees clockwise off from the traditional northwesterly wind patterns. The reason for this is mostly due to changes in the location of the strong upper wind known as the Jet Stream, which used to spend most of its time over Canada. Now, with the changes to the atmosphere as it cools into nuclear winter, this powerful west-to-east jet of air, which essentially drives the weather, now lies across the mid-latitudes of the United States.”

  Zlata highlighted the strong wind barbs of the jet stream on a 250-millibar chart before returning to the 850. “This makes sense, when you think about it. It’s as if we are in the middle of an extremely cold January, with the Jet Stream over, say, Kansas, rather than Winnipeg,” she explained.

  “And while we deal with heavy snow accumulations and cold temps here in the Pacific Northwest, they’re dealing with persistent heavy rain in California and northern Mexico. They‘re getting Pacific typhoons there and heavy snowfall in Arizona and New Mexico,” Zlata went on, paging through slides showing the frontal activity from Portland to San Diego.

  “How long will the snow accumulations go on and how much snow are we talking about?” asked Nora, clearly worried about the weight of snow piling on rooftops in town, her assigned task for the planning session to come.

  “From what we’re seeing in the sea-temperature data being reported from Tofino and Astoria, the sea temp has dropped by a full degree from normal,” Zlata said, as she directed Geoff to jump ahead a few slides. “This slide shows global sea temps. You can see that we live in the green, temperate zone where normal sea temps would be around ten to twelve degrees. They have dropped a full degree in just the last six months.

  According to the best climate-change models I have in my database and my own hunch, the lack of solar insolation and the subsequent loss of heat will be at its maximum rate for the first six months, which we have seen. Then it will gradually slow down as the nuclear winter unfolds, say, over the next five years.” Zlata explained this while Geoff clicked ahead a few more slides to a depiction of colder temperatures in North America and the surrounding oceans.

  “So these are the temps we’ll be living with?” JJ asked.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” Zlata replied, as everybody took in the details projected on the wall. “The Arctic Ocean will be permanently frozen-over for years to come, and there will be surface ice in the inlets from Seattle all the way to Anchorage. But we won’t be able to walk across from Vancouver Island to the mainland, because strong tidal currents along the Inside Passage will prevent total freeze-up.”

  “And what about snow accumulations?” Nora asked again, this time knowing what the answer was going to be.

  “It’s going to be like the last two weeks have been and it will keep going for another six months before it tapers off. To make matters worse, from time to time that persistent Low centered on Portland will break down and we’ll get heavy rains on top of the snow. Then the Low will re-establish itself and bring colder temps back. So we’ll alternate between heavy snow and rain.”

  “So we’ll have what, a hundred feet of snow in five years?”

  “Well, no, Manfred. It’ll compress as it accumulates. The occasional rain will make hard ice layers, adding weight. So, we’ll probably see a snow pack of five meters by this time next year.”

  “What else have you got to cheer us up?” asked Tanya.

  “Well, we think that the higher air pressure we’re experiencing will have a modest effect on chemical reactions. Water will boil at a higher than normal temperature and internal-combustion engines will have denser air to work with, as though they were supercharged. We don’t know how this will affect us, but we should watch for things behaving a bit outside of normal parameters. The one thing we have absolutely no idea about is what is happening up above. The nuclear explosions threw huge amounts of dust and soot as high as 150,000 feet into the stratosphere. It’s so far above the level where water is present, say 40,000 feet, that there’s no mechanism to wash the dust out of the atmosphere. So it could linger there for decades, leaving us in a new ice age, only worse.”

  “How could this be worse?” someone asked.

  “A normal Ice Age affects North America and Eurasia, but the rest of the world still gets sunshine. In this nuclear winter there will be Ice Ages happening in all the continents, and no sunshine anywhere. There’s no place to go to escape the cold, and nowhere to grow food. We really are facing extinction unless something happens in the stratosphere, that we don’t know about, to clear out all the material that’s cut off the sun.”

  29

  MOONSTRUCK

  05 October: 20 Weeks After NEW

  Manfred was saved by the SOPs. He had been leading a three-man run to Moonstruck Farm, with his son Jack riding with him on the whisper sled. Duncan followed with a gas-powered sled a thousand meters behind, towing a heavy cargo. They were going to trade a barrel of diesel and some food supplies for an active bee-colony. Nora had convinced the others that the HOTH needed a beehive in the Barn/Garden complex to increase food production and eliminate the work required for hand-pollination.

  The SOPs called for approaching Moonstruck Farm from the forest rather than following smoother paths on former roads now buried by eight feet of snow. As Manfred and Jack quietly came to the end of the last stand of trees they stopped; the electric sled became instantly silent.

  Having been to Moonstruck many times by now, Manfred immediately recognized that something was wrong. There was no smoke coming out of the barn’s chimney. This meant that Clayton Palaty had let the fire burn out, something he would never do in this minus-twenty weather.

  Concerned that something may be seriously wrong, Manfred clicked several times on his XPR radio, hoping that Duncan was wearing his ear-piece. Sure enough, Manfred heard the distant clattering sound of Duncan’s sled abruptly stop, bringing absolute silence to the wintry landscape.

  “Two, this is one, over.”

  “Go ahead one.”

  “MODERN ART”, Manfred gave the code-word for something looks wrong.

  “Roger, out.”

  Jack took up a defensive position, watching the path they had made with the whisper sled, while his father scanned the scene with his binoculars. At first Manfred couldn’t see anything wrong, but then he noticed the two dogs at the snow-covered entrance to the main farmhouse. They were Shepherd �
�� Rottweiler crosses. Manfred recognized Zeus and Adolph from the surveillance pictures in the Ops Center. These were Walker Gang dogs. That meant that at the very least their handler, Big Joe, would be near. They certainly wouldn’t be welcome at the Palaty farm, given the many atrocities that the Walker gang had carried out. All of the Ring Families and most other survivors would shoot Walker and the more brutal of his henchmen on sight.

  A rumor had spread that a few of Walker’s men didn’t agree with his methods. His habit of terrorizing those that he ambushed, taking everything from them, had made him an outlaw in the Oceanside region. Other gangs, even some of the bad ones, didn’t go quite as far over the line as Walker’s men. However, it was also well known that the former maintenance engineer, Frank, and sometimes Big Joe, had intervened and talked Walker out of some of his crueler ideas. Some lives had been spared.

  Before jumping to any conclusions, Manfred needed more information. According to SOPs, this had to be called-in before any further actions could be taken.

  “Zero, this is One, Over.”

  “One, this is Zero, Send, Over.”

  “MODERN ART confirmed. Subjects Delta-one and Delta-two present. No British in the meadow.” This made it clear to Geoff, manning Ops, that there were no British Thermal Units - heat - at the place where the animals should be - the barn.

  Casey wrote the script for Geoff to broadcast on the frequency used for communications between the HOTH and Moonstruck Farm. JJ, Danny, Casey, and GT armed themselves, taking extra pistols and clips, and headed out on two gas sleds.

  “Moonstruck, this is HOTH. Over,” Geoff transmitted.

  After several attempts, an awkward reply finally came. “HOTH, this is Moonstruck Farm. Everything is normal here. What do you want?” This was so far away from standard radio-telephony that Geoff knew that a stranger was operating the radio. So Casey’s plan could work.