by North, Geoff
The house was no more. He couldn’t pour himself a glass of water from the kitchen sink. There was no bathtub faucet in the washroom to quench his thirst from. Jake couldn’t even drink out of the toilet. Think, Jake… Where does the water come from?
The well.
The underground water supply was located less than fifty feet east of where the house once stood. Jake no longer knew where east was, and even if he did manage to crawl off into the complete darkness and stumble across it, there was no way of accessing the precious fluid from deep within—not in his present burnt and weakened condition. Even if he somehow managed to remove the hundred pound concrete cover, Jake had no means of getting to the two-thousand gallon reservoir tank below. Any ropes that may have been lying around the yard or sitting coiled up inside the house or barns had undoubtedly been fried into nothingness. There were no spools of wire to secure a pail, or piles of chain to—
Chain.
Jake had last used the tractor he was leaning against to pull his truck from a snowbank. That had been over four months ago, halfway through January after a heavy snowstorm. He had used the tractor to pull it free, and he had secured the truck bumper by a forty foot length of chain. Mandy steered the truck while Jake drove the tractor. He parked the tractor and had gone to remove the chain from the hitch but decided against it in the end. Why? I had forgotten my gloves on the ground after securing the chain to the truck bumper. It was cold, and my fingers were wet and freezing. I couldn’t be bothered.
Jake crawled around the tractor, feeling his way along the dry earth. His fingers found the metal frame at the back and finally settled on the rough circular hitching hole. Jake felt around it and discovered a heavy metal hook attached. He made a weak whooping sound as his hands wrapped around metal links. It was still there. The chain was still attached to the tractor, bundled up in a lazy pile like a cold, dead snake.
Jake let it drop into the dirt and started climbing his way up the back of the tractor. The chain would only be of use if he could find some kind of water container to attach it to. There had to be something in the tractor cab—a discarded water bottle, an empty coffee cup—anything he could lower down into the well to hold water. The cab’s glass windows had been blown away, so Jake didn’t have to struggle looking for door handles in the dark. It was disorienting crawling in sideways over the seat. The vinyl seat covering was gone and Jake’s fingers got caught in the metal springs. He rested one knee on the seat frame and tried balancing his other foot on a gear shifter in an attempt to extricate his hand. The hand came free and Jake toppled over, unable to find anything else in the dark to grab onto. His back slammed into the door now resting against the ground and the fingers that had been caught in the seat springs settled on a curved surface near the foot clutch.
What’s this? He ignored the pain flaring up in his lower back. He knew full well what he’d found, and it was a hell of a lot better than an empty water bottle or discarded coffee cup. It was a paint can, complete with wire handle. It had been sitting in the corner of the cab for years, collecting smaller mechanical parts and junk—dead spark plugs, screws, bolts, and a hundred other little pieces of farm life—that Jake had fully intended to someday throw out. Today was the day, he figured, turning the pail upside down, letting the accumulation spill over his gut and down into the door frame. It was an odd, surreal feeling; clutching the now empty can against his chest as if it were the most valuable item left in the world, when only hours before it had no meaning in his life whatsoever.
But it was the most precious thing to him at this very moment. It might very well help extend his miserable life. Jake climbed out and jumped to the ground. He found the back of the tractor once again, unhooked the chain, and started coiling it loosely around his shoulders. He stopped after the third loop, the metal already hanging from his body felt impossibly heavy. There was over a hundred pounds more to go. He would never be able to carry that much weight in his condition. He would have to drag it.
Drag it where? He couldn’t see his fat, blistered fingers in front of his face, how was he expected to find a concrete well-cover fifty feet from where his house once was? Jake took a few deep wheezing breaths and fought the claustrophobic dread away. Use your head. Rationalize.
He was next to the tractor. The tractor had been parked approximately a hundred yards north of the house. Think, Jake, which way was the tractor parked… which direction? It had been punched over onto its side from the shockwave. The nuclear blast had come from the south. That meant the tractor had either been facing west or east. West... I parked it facing west beside the empty gas tanks bordering the northern shelter belt of trees. I always parked it there.
Jake wrapped one end of the chain around his wrist a couple of times and clutched onto the pail handle with his free hand. He leaned against the tractor and moved slowly to his right, rubbing his rear end against the blasted metal until he was certain he was facing south. He made a forty-five degree turn to the left and started walking out. The well would be somewhere out in that south-easterly direction. Fifty feet from the house, three-hundred feet from the tractor.
Or somewhere thereabouts.
Jake weaved his way back and forth, heading south, and then coming back to the north. He was lost before he had even set out, but the disorientation and vertigo-inducing confusion became much worse. The tractor was now lost to him forever. All that remained was the sound of his boots dragging in the dry dirt, and the steady, mournful whistle of air in his nostrils. He’d stopped breathing through his mouth; it hurt his throat too much. If he didn’t find that well soon, he’d drop dead.
After another hour or so, Jake didn’t much care if he found the well or not. His thoughts kept returning to his lost family, to what their final moments must have been like. What had Nicholas been doing? Playing with his video console in the living room? Or had he been sitting in the front yard pushing his toy cars around in the dirt? Did he see the blast take place? Had the flash burned his little eyeballs right out of his beautiful little head? Had Mandy been with him?
Had it ended quickly, or did they suffer?
The arm dragging the chain had gone dead. Jake’s fingers were tingling from the pressure of the links wrapped around his wrist. He imagined his arm had probably stretched out, and if he dragged the chain along any further, his knuckles would rub against the ground.
Jake gave up and fell to his knees. Fuck it. Not worth the effort… It’s all over.
He rolled over onto his back and stretched out. His foot hit something. Jake squirmed his dying body towards it more out of curiosity than caring. He felt the cold, pitted surface and thought it was a big, flat stone. The edge was rough but gave way to a curved regularity after a few more inches. Jake was back on his knees feeling the flat surface. It was the concrete well cover, or a good chunk of it, blown clear off the top and resting in the dirt. He reached out, feeling at the air, hoping to find the foot-high platform the cover had rested on. Jake found it a few moments later. The other half of the cover was still firmly in place with more than enough room open to pass the paint tin through. The shockwave had been incredibly powerful and sudden; strong enough and fast enough to break the three-inch thick concrete slab in two.
Jake found a few more chunks of smaller concrete and tossed them into the tin for weight. He wrapped one end of the chain around the handle and slowly started to lower his container. He could hear it bonking dully off the inner side of the well shaft. He slowed down even more, fearful the wire handle might detach from one side of the tin. I’ll dive into the water if that happens. If the fall doesn’t kill me, drowning will do the job. One way or another, Jake was going to drink his fill.
The links squirmed through his fingers one after another. Jake was beginning to think he might run out of chain before finding water, or worse yet, the well’s contents had been boiled dry like the slough that had narrowly saved Jake’s life. It has to be there by now… the reservoir can’t be that far down. He allowed the rest
of the chain to slip between his hands. He was too thirsty and exhausted to try a second time. Jake started pulling the chain back up, and two agonizing minutes later his efforts paid off. The water was lukewarm and the first few swallows hurt like hell. It felt as if knives were piercing the back of his throat, and a sock filled with gravel was punching through his chest. The taste was magnificent.
Jake drank a quarter of the pail down and belched loudly. He vomited a few moments later and decided to rest before drinking anymore. Slow down, Jake, it isn’t a race. He scooped some out into his hands and splashed it onto his face. It hurt almost as much on the outside as it did going down inside him. Even in the dark, Jake knew his skin was a mess. The water leaked into open sores and cracks, feeling like acid. He washed himself some more and the pain lessened. Jake drank what was left sloshing around in the bottom and started lowering the paint can down into the well for a second helping. He continued drinking and bathing and vomiting until he was too bloated and too tired to lower the pail again. Jake nodded off, sitting in a puddle of mud, grateful to be alive and terrified of living another day longer.
The complete blackness had lifted. Night had given way to morning, or the heavy clouds of shit had finally started to clear. It was grey again, and even that dreary state was a welcome sight. Big flakes of white were falling all around Jake. They had settled on his shoulders and in his lap as he’d slept against the well. Snow in late April wasn’t all that unusual in this part of the world. Jake had seen some truly violent blizzards in spring with substantial accumulations of snow. But this was late May, and this wasn’t snow.
He brushed the deadfall from his arms and shook it free from the top of his bald head. It was like fragments of burnt newspaper, even thinner than that, like charred toilet paper crisped to a dull grey. The first snowfall of a new season. Jake retrieved one more pail of water and set away from his farm. He headed north—or his best guess at north according to where the greater part of the well cover had blasted free—away from the closest bomb impact and towards the zone where the shockwave would have eventually petered out. If Mandy and Nicholas had survived, they would’ve likely gone that direction as well.
They’re dead. Give up on that. Be thankful it ended quickly for them. Go north and find survivors. Find someone to help you with your burns… Find someone to talk to.
Jake couldn’t see the sun, but he could see enough around him to know it was still somewhere up there. It was brightest directly above and behind him. High noon. He kept that dull smudge in mind as he made his way. He would eventually make it to Big Bear Valley; even if he strayed off a little to the east or to the west. The Little Saskatchewan River would be at the bottom of that valley, and if the shockwave had lost enough of its force and not boiled the running water away, Jake figured he could re-fill his paint can. The Little Saskatchewan ran into Cooper’s Lake another twenty miles to the west. There would definitely be water there. Unless a nuke was dropped directly into the center of that big lake, Jake felt confident he could sustain himself for weeks. They didn’t call it the Land of a 100,000 Lakes for nothing.
Jake stumbled into the river a day later without even realizing he’d found Big Bear Valley. The land had become so featureless that distances and even dimensions were hard to judge. The forests and roads, the fields and hills—everything Jake had grown up within, and presumed would be there long after he was gone—were no more. The river was filthy, but he drank from it anyway. He had no matches or material to start a fire to boil the water clean. Jake could handle the stomach cramps, the vomiting, and violent diarrhea of drinking tainted water. If that didn’t kill him, the radiation sickness eventually would. He was living his last days, and he would drink and eat whatever the hell he came across.
Jake walked into the stream up to his crotch and washed the ashes from his arms and neck. He bent over and stuck his head in, allowing the current to clean his sore, peeling scalp. It was almost enough to make him feel like a human being again. He scooped some of the water into his hands and drank. His stomach rumbled, and Jake remembered what it was like to eat. I can only survive on dirty water for a week, maybe two. I need to find food.
A coyote wailed off in the distance. It was the first sound of life Jake had heard since the bombs hit. Up until a short while ago he had hoped to find his wife and son, to hear them calling his name, lost and searching like he was. Jake had given up on that fantasy and settled for the wish of hearing anyone.
The coyote continued to yelp. It was joined by a half dozen more. They’re yipping surrounded him, insistent and frantic. Jake wasn’t the only thing left living that needed to eat. They’re just coyotes. You’ve heard them your whole life. Mangy prairie dogs… nothing more. They would never attack a full-grown man. But Jake wasn’t entirely sure anymore what a coyote would or wouldn’t attack, especially in big, starving numbers. He had heard reports in the last few years of coyotes attacking women and children. An eighteen-year old girl was killed by a pack of three somewhere up north while jogging down a back road just the autumn before. Mandy had stopped jogging along the lane after hearing that story. She had even insisted Jake start carrying his rifle in the truck when he was working out in the fields. He remembered her words. You can never be too safe. How would you feel if something happened to Nicholas? The less of those damned things wandering around, the better.
Jake walked out from the river, trying not to splash water loudly and failing terribly. Don’t be silly. You’re a full grown man. They’re fucking coyotes. But he was a full grown man that hadn’t eaten in days. He was burned, irradiated, and weak. A pack of starving coyotes wouldn’t have much of a struggle bringing him down. Jake moved softly along the river bank, his eyes attempting to pierce the grey, dry mist all around. He strained his ears, commanding his sense of hearing to pick up the sound of approaching paws in the dirt. The further along he went, the more hopeful Jake became. Maybe he would come across one of the bastards all on its own. How hard would it be to kill a solitary coyote with his bare hands? Easy-peasy. I’ll snap its neck and eat the whole goddamn thing down… meat, bones, brains, and fur.
The coyotes had gone silent. Jake crept along, tip-toeing through the mud, his arms extended out in front, his fingers set like claws. He wasn’t going to be lucky enough to stumble along a single coyote, he knew that. Animals survived in packs for a reason. They’d been doing it for thousands of years before mankind arrived on the scene. Civilization was through, and Jake’s luck—if you could call his managing to live through the annihilation of his species luck—was about to run out. Jake pictured them getting closer, surrounding him in a circle and gathering courage. It would come any moment. I hope they make it quick. I hope one of them goes for my throat.
A black smudge appeared in front of him. It was getting bigger, coming towards him. Jake realized a few seconds later the thing wasn’t moving. Jake was still walking, creeping along on legs too stubborn to stop.
The black smudge started to take form. The size was about right for a coyote, but something was definitely wrong. It’s standing on its hind legs… what kind of prairie dog stands on its hind fucking legs?
“Daddy?”
The form burst forward and slammed into Jake. Small arms wrapped around his legs almost knocking him from his feet. Jake’s fingers were still clutching at the air three feet in front of him. He lowered his hands and felt the small boy’s dusty hair. Nicholas looked up at him and smiled. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, leaving trails of wet black. Jake collapsed to his knees and stared into his son’s face. It was dirty and streaked with mud and ash. Jake kissed his forehead and held him out at arm’s length. He was in far better shape than his father. His skin hadn’t been fried, and the clothes he wore were relatively clean and unsinged. But they weren’t his son’s clothes. They were a couple of sizes too big and completely unfamiliar to Jake. Where had the boy been, and how did he get this far from home on his own?
Jake hugged him and started to cry. “How?” he r
asped. “How did you get here?”
Cold metal touched the back of Jake’s neck before Nicholas could answer. Jake heard the distinctive click of a rifle being cocked.
“Get your hands off of him,” a voice commanded. “Get your hands off my boy.”
End of Part 1
