by Nathan Jones
“Like coming to help us,” April said, resting a hand on his arm. “And now you're sharing all this with us. It's a godsend, Trev. You're a godsend.” Terry and Matt were quick to agree.
Doing his best to hide how his face flushed with embarrassment at the praise, Trev handed out the shovels and together they got to work. Even with the small, inadequate tools it only took a few minutes of frantic digging to get down to the cache, drawing on their last reserves of strength and driven by hunger.
Terry was first to hit it, pausing when his shovel struck dirt with a crinkling sound and throwing his shovel away. He dropped to his knees, staring at the spot in excitement. “I hit tarp!” he nearly shouted. He began digging with his bare hands, scrabbling to get a grip on the plastic mesh.
Trev put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “We're going to have to do a lot more digging before we can uncover the tarp.”
Matt made a choking noise. “I know you told us how much there was, but it still hasn't sunk in.” He got to work again in nearly a frenzy, digging down to the tarp and then expanding the hole around the edges. Trev joined him, and Terry retrieved his tool to continue as well. Finally they got enough of the tarp uncovered that working together at one end they managed to heave it and the remaining dirt off.
As Matt and Terry dropped the tarp and fell to their knees beside the hole Trev yanked on it one last time, partially displacing the blankets underneath, which the other two men pulled aside to reveal the things he'd cached nearly three weeks ago.
April also fell to her knees beside the hole, and together they all stared at the bags of food and other gear piled atop boxes and buckets with expressions of awe and almost desperate need. April was the first to reach into the cache, pulling out one of the tied shut grocery bags with a grunt of effort and ripping it open with her fingernails. She pulled out a can almost reverently. “Green beans,” she said, making a noise that was half laugh, half sob. “I hate green beans.”
In direct contradiction with what she'd just said the blond woman accepted the can opener Trev offered her and attacked the top with almost desperate frenzy. Once it was open she dropped to sit cross-legged with her two children crowding around her and pulled the lid away. The three of them immediately set to scooping in mouthfuls of the stringy food with their bare hands, dripping green bean juice all over their dirty clothes.
Trev handed out more can openers and they all got to work opening cans and filling their bellies with real, solid food. The rose hips had felt like manna from heaven, but even while eating them the last few days Trev had craved something more substantial. Now he finally had it.
They gorged themselves that evening, eating extra to make up for the lean days, and then at Trev's insistence they took out as much food as they thought they'd be able to carry with them to Aspen Hill. Terry and April transferred the lightest of their things to Aaron's small backpack so they could fill their only slightly larger school packs, then got to work finding a way to load the wagon to capacity beneath their few possessions.
As for Matt and Trev's backpacks, they were larger and could hold more and Trev actually had to empty a few things from his friend's pack to lighten it, reminding him of the harsh lesson he'd learned his first day. Matt protested that he was willing to overburden himself if it meant having more food when they got home, and Terry quickly offered to share the load, so Trev stopped arguing and focused on his own pack. He also planned to pick up everything he'd unloaded a mile down the road, assuming it was still there, so he packed with that in mind.
In the end it felt like they barely made a dent on the cache. Trev had them help him cover it up again with blankets and the tarp, then they filled the hole back in and covered it with a carpet of leaves and sticks to camouflage it once more.
That night they slept in the clearing right on top of the cache. For Trev it was the best night's sleep he'd had since the FETF camp, with a full stomach and the comfort that the long, harrowing journey was nearly over and they were almost home. It didn't even occur to him that he was facing the same 50 mile trek that had nearly defeated him the first week after the attack, and yet after all the traveling he'd done it felt like no more than the final stretch.
Chapter Fifteen
“Aid”
Just before noon on the 22nd day after the Gulf refineries attack found Sam making her way to Roadblock 1 for a shift.
She'd done four so far, all fairly uneventful. The biggest trouble they'd encountered was a brief scuffle between refugees and “townies”, as the refugees had taken to calling the residents of Aspen Hill, at the spring a couple days ago. A few of the men manning the roadblock with her had hurried to break it up, sending the refugees back to camp and the townspeople back to their homes, and that had been that.
At least within the town itself. Troubling news had been making its way around the roadblocks that people were being robbed outside of town. Some blamed bandits, others came to the more logical conclusion that the refugees were causing trouble, but either way Mayor Anderson and Officer Turner had tightened the town's borders even more and cautioned the residents of Aspen Hill to stay behind the roadblocks and patrols.
When Sam arrived at the roadblock she saw that the town's lone policeman-turned-leader was there for an inspection, currently talking with Chauncey Watson, who she'd done a shift with, and a tall man about her age with light brown hair and the lean, wiry look of someone who ran track or marathons. Or in this case went on frequent long patrols, since from the descriptions she'd been given she guessed this was Lewis Halsson, Trev's cousin. Matt had told her about how draining the shifts had been the few times he'd helped out, and from what she understood Lewis did them frequently.
When Lewis saw her he broke off his conversation with Chauncey and Turner and came over, offering his hand. “We haven't had a chance to be introduced yet. Sam, right? You came down with Matt.”
She nodded, warily accepting the handshake. “You're Trev's cousin Lewis.”
He nodded back. “That's right. Guess they haven't come back yet, and I don't suppose you could've heard news about them. I haven't been getting anything that could tell me how they're doing on my shortwave radio, either.”
“We're praying,” Sam replied. “Mona says that's all we can do at this point.”
“Right.” Lewis agreed. Then he paused, looking a bit uncomfortable. “So I had a visitor from your house a while back. A lady named Amanda Townsend, said you sent her along to get food since Trev promised to take care of her.”
At the mention of the refugee woman Sam's mood immediately soured. Hard as she'd been trying to get along they'd been fighting lately, partly because of Mandy's bad attitude and partly because Sam kept confronting her about doing her fair share to help out. Or doing anything at all for that matter.
“Yeah, she came back with enough to last her a week.” Sam didn't mention that in spite of needing Mona to prepare the food for her, and in spite of the Larsons' generosity feeding her up to that point, the woman hadn't shared any of it. And after what she'd gotten ran out she'd gone right back to eating the Larsons' food again without a word of gratitude. “Did she tell you why Trev made that promise?” she continued, more coldly than she'd intended to.
Lewis's expression flashed briefly with anger before going carefully blank. “No, but I heard it from other people. It's a bold-faced lie. Also I would've preferred that nobody but people I trust know where I live.”
A somewhat uncomfortable silence fell. Sam wasn't sure what she believed, but she wasn't about to express her doubts to the man's own cousin. Finally she cleared her throat. “So are you on shift at the roadblock?”
Matt's friend shook his head. “I'm in charge of patrols for the northern border so that's where I do my shifts. I just came down to talk to Officer Turner about a few things. Chauncey was here too and since he also listens to his shortwave radio, way more obsessively than I have time for in fact, we got to talking about events out in the wider world.” He motioned, a
n offer for her to join him as he made his way back over to the other two men to continue their conversation.
“What news is there?” she asked, following.
Turner heard her and answered. “Well Chauncey here has been following a network of amateur radio operators spanning most of the country.”
The retired high school teacher nodded. “Even with the internet and phones down there's still a lot of information being passed around if you know where to look and can make some good friends over the airwaves. I was just telling these guys about those refineries the President was talking about building the day after the attack.”
“You've heard something about them?” Sam asked, excited in spite of herself. Those refineries represented hope, a chance that all this madness the country had sunk into might be ending sometime in the not so distant future.
Chauncey snorted. “Something? Those projects are half of what gets talked about on the radio, them and the entire mess surrounding them.”
“Mess?” she repeated in dismay. “So the construction isn't going well?”
The radio operator laughed outright, either not noticing or not caring how he was bursting her bubble. “It isn't going at all. All those cities full of starving people, because the government decided that instead of diverting all remaining resources to bringing supplies to the big cities to cushion us from the collapse they'd try to build refineries from scratch. That on top of using all the resources not going into the construction to keep our soldiers supplied so they can defend our borders and keep the peace in the major cities. If our country still had a robust economy and could depend on outside help that sort of juggling act might have worked, but we've spent decades spiraling our national debt out of control and alienating the rest of the world.”
Chauncey shook his head. “To make matters worse the convoys the Federal government was sending to the construction sites kept getting attacked by people desperate enough to go up against armed soldiers in military vehicles. Some convoys were delayed, some were hijacked altogether, but between the raids and the government running out of resources the project started to stall. I'm afraid the refineries are pretty much a failure at this point, but the death knell will come when Russia invades Canada.”
Sam stood stunned for several seconds. “Wait, Russia invading Canada? Since when? You can't just throw something out there like that!”
The retired teacher shrugged. “Sorry, it's easy to forget that what's common knowledge on the radio may not have gotten out there. Word from our friends up north is that the Gold Bloc is seriously leaning on them to sell all their accumulated crude oil that they haven't been able to do anything with since the Gulf refineries were destroyed. Word is that whatever elements of our Armed Forces that can be spared from other duties are up there trying to prevent the deal with subtle and not so subtle threats. But considering the situation our country's in those threats are like waving a wet noodle.”
Lewis nodded. “Word is that the recalled military units from all over the world, the ones that made it home at least, are being diverted to Canada to “bolster their national defense”, which Canada isn't too pleased with since they were on the verge of joining the Gold Bloc to help stabilize their economy. The US can't afford to lose our major source of oil because that would pretty much spell the end of us, and Canada can't really do anything about our soldiers “protecting” the oil because they don't have the military might to kick us out. Things are shaping up into an invasion up there, and literally the only card the US still has left to play is our nuclear arsenal. Word is that with the first Russian to set foot on Canadian soil the nukes will fly.”
“That's insane!” Turner muttered, shaking his head. “If we can't even use that oil why are we risking even further trouble and guaranteeing no other country will want to help us just to keep it out of everyone else's hands? It's like losing a race and taking a dump in the victor's trophy.”
Sam nodded vehemently, still numb from all this terrible news. Although she could've done without the analogy. “Besides, the oil's not even ours!”
Chauncey shrugged again and waved vaguely at the sprawling refugee camp just visible down the street beyond the roadblock. “Look around, the world's insane. Short term if we let Russia have that oil things might get better for us, assuming the Gold Bloc throws us a bone. Long term we'd be a crippled bird with a tiger crouched over us ready to pounce at our weakest moment, with no real way to claw our way back to any sort of strong position on the world stage. If Canada joins the Gold Bloc and stops sending us oil then Mexico and the Central and South American countries will quickly follow suit, leaving the US with no real choice but to cave to the Russians.” The older man gave her a stern look. “You want to live in a world controlled by the Gold Bloc?”
Sam wanted to point out that things hadn't turned out so good with the US calling the shots on the world stage, but at the same time she didn't want to see her country attacked. Didn't want it bad enough that even starving and desperate for help she'd still want to see her fellow Americans pick up their guns and fight off the invading country rather than putting their necks under the boot.
“Do you think what remains of our government would actually launch the nukes?” she asked quietly.
“Why not?” Chauncey said with a weary sigh. “Our people are dying by the millions to the chaos alone, and we've just reached the point where people with no food after the Gulf refineries attack will be starving to death so the casualty numbers will soon skyrocket. Our government is in tatters and our hope of finding a way out of this mess is getting smaller and smaller. We're already sinking, and in that position it's a lot more tempting to throw a noose around your enemy's neck and pull them in with you, so nuclear war will definitely be on the table. We've got nothing to lose and Russia knows it, which is the only thing that's held them off until now. But if Canada invites them in and asks for their help booting out US soldiers sitting on their oil the Gold Bloc might just take that chance. If they do who knows what happens then?”
It was almost unbelievable. Here Sam and the community were fighting tooth and nail just to survive the upcoming winter, and somehow even in this situation the threat of war still loomed over them. Then again, when a country was at its weakest was just the time when its enemies were most likely to attack, so maybe it wasn't so unbelievable.
Turner cursed. “Well all this is plenty grim, but we should be worrying more about what's closer to home.” Oddly when he said that he didn't turn to look north at the refugee camp, but south.
Sam's frown deepened. “What do you mean? More news?”
Lewis nodded. “You could say that. FETF sent a major supply convoy to Price to aid with their growing refugee camp. Word is the refugees there number in the tens of thousands now, with more arriving every day.”
“More importantly,” Chauncey cut in irritably, “they're very aware of Aspen Hill. A FETF administrator was on the radio talking to me this morning. Chewed me up and spit me out every way you can imagine, grilling me for information on the town and our own refugee camp and demanding answers I couldn't give. I was tempted to just sign off but I was afraid if I did I'd end up on some Federal naughty list and wind up paying for it the moment they get here.”
Sam started in surprise. “You think they're going to come here?”
“We're not standing around at this roadblock for the pleasant conversation,” Turner growled. “From their questioning Chauncey seems to think they'll be sending someone our way, probably soon. We're here in case that “soon” is now.”
“But wouldn't they come to Roadblock 3 to the south?” she asked.
“Maybe. But they know the refugee camp is outside this roadblock and that seems to be what they're interested in.”
“I wouldn't be too sure of that,” Lewis said with a shake of his head. “They'll stick their noses in Aspen Hill's business. It's what they do best.”
The conversation turned to other things as they waited. Sam soon cemented an impre
ssion of Lewis as polite and knowledgeable, but also reserved and even a bit on the doom and gloom side. It was obvious he expected the worst from the FETF visit and was sticking around to see just how bad it was going to be. That made Sam nervous, although she didn't necessarily agree herself.
After all, it was the Task Force's job to send aid and that's what they were doing. What trouble could come from that? If anything they'd make things much better for the refugee camp outside of town, which would in turn make things better for Aspen Hill. They might even have aid for those in town who didn't have enough and were forced to draw from the town storehouse.
About a half hour later Chauncey's prediction came true, as a whistle from the man standing atop one of the cars keeping watch with binoculars drew their attention. Sam followed the others as they climbed up onto the vehicles or dressers that made up the roadblock, and even without binoculars she could see the two vehicles bearing FETF markings parked in the refugee camp. One looked like a troop transport, bristling with soldiers looking warily out at the refugees, while the other was obviously a supply truck.
“If that's full of food that could solve a lot of problems,” Chauncey said eagerly.
At his side Lewis shook his head. “Divide it between the five hundred or so people in the refugee camp, along with however much they want to share with the town, and you'll be surprised how fast it empties. Not to mention the presence of food will encourage more refugees to stick around when they might've otherwise kept going down to Price. That aid truck could end up a net loss for us.”
“Well I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.” Turner unsnapped the radio from his belt. “Roadblock 1 to Town Hall. Get Anderson and anyone you can find from the City Council out here. FETF is out in the refugee camp and will probably be here soon.”
