“Before the sky got dark, we drove around these parts looking for a safe place to hide. We saw a field full of cattle not far from here.
“When the snow melted off the roads and we could drive again, Dad said he was tired of feeding us beans and rice. He said the cows would still be frozen in the fields, and that the meat would still be good once it thawed out. We found a dead cow, and he used an axe to chop off a hindquarter and put it in the back of the truck. He was going to make us a steak dinner tonight.”
“How old are you, Rachel?”
“I’m sixteen. I think. We lost track of what day it was a very long time ago. If it’s after July 17th, I’m sixteen. My sister Roxanne, she’s fifteen.”
“Did you know the men who shot your dad?”
“No. We never saw them before. We saw them broken down, with the hood of their car open. Daddy said it wasn’t proper to leave them there without trying to help. He said helping them was the Christian thing to do. And then they killed him. For what? I mean, Daddy would have taken them wherever they needed to go. They didn’t have to kill him.”
Roxanne continued to stare into space, without saying a word. It was easy to see that she was the most traumatized of the two.
Rachel looked at Sami and said, “Where will we go now? What will we do?”
Sami held her close and said, “Shhhh… you’re part of us now. You’re part of our family. You’ll stay here with us, and you’ll never have to worry about being hungry or cold again.”
Mark and Brad were able to recover the body and return it to the mine without being seen by Rachel and Roxanne. They placed it in Bay 24, next to Phyllis Snyder’s burial mound.
They wrapped him from neck to toe in a white sheet, and washed his face and neck so that no blood was visible. They closed his eyelids and brushed his hair. Then they laid a white pillow beneath his head.
Then Mark went back to the dining room bay to check on the two young girls.
He again caught Hannah’s eye and motioned her over.
“How are they doing?”
“Rachel, the oldest, is a bit better, I think. Roxanne is in her own world right now. I hope she comes around, but it looks like it may be awhile.”
“What else can I do?”
“Nothing for now. Is the body inside the mine?”
“Yes, he’s next to Mom. He’s cleaned up and laying in repose. If they want to see him, he’s ready. Do you know his name?”
“Bill Meyers. Karen is already making a headstone for him.”
“Where are we going to put them?”
“Rachel seems to have bonded with Sami. Sami said they’ll stay with her for the time being. Until they’re strong enough to be on their own. Then we’ll put them in your mom’s old RV, if that’s okay with you and Bryan and Debbie.”
“Okay. Sounds like a plan. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
“Okay, Baby. And Mark…”
“Yes?”
“When that man shot their father, and when you ran out the door to help them…”
He cut her off.
“I know. It was stupid, and I’m sorry. I just did it without thinking.”
She smiled.
“No. I’m not upset about it. I know it could have been dangerous for you. But it’s what I would have expected from my knight in shining armor, to run to help someone in need. I guess what I’m saying is, at that point they needed you more than I did. And I’m proud of you for running to help them.”
“Thank you honey.”
“No, Sailor. Thank you, for being the hero I always knew you were. Someday they will thank you too. I am so lucky to have you. And I so love you.”
Mark blushed, which under different circumstances would have made Hannah laugh.
Instead, she kissed him on the cheek and went back to help Rachel and Roxanne.
Chapter 37
The next couple of days were trying for all concerned. Hannah, Sarah and Sami took turns sitting up with the girls. It was a full two days before either of them laid their heads down and slept.
The day after their arrival, they were told that their father had been brought into the mine and would be buried there. They were asked if they wanted to spend some time with him first.
They asked the others to stay behind, to give them their time alone with him. Sarah and Sami watched from a distance, in case they were needed. But they didn’t intrude.
Karen’s headstone was beautiful. Even though she’d never met the man, she poured her heart and soul into it. And for the funeral, she went to her computer and printed out the words to “Amazing Grace” in forty one copies.
The funeral was sad, yet dignified. Calling it “beautiful” under the circumstances wouldn’t be proper. But it was, almost. Just as she did when Phyllis was buried, Karen produced a perfect long stemmed yellow rose to place atop the pure white burial mound.
Rachel and Roxanne made a bumpy transition into their new life and new family. They had indeed lost track of the days, and Rachel had turned sixteen three weeks before.
Roxanne had turned fifteen just a few days before that.
The kitchen prepared them a belated birthday cake to try to give them something to smile about. It was a melancholy event. They had a long way to go.
As quickly as the warm weather had come, it went away again. The snow fell once more, and once again the roads were covered.
This time, though, was different. Everyone knew that this was their last autumn, and their last winter, inside the mine.
They had less than six months to go now. And everyone presumed the last few months would go quickly, what with all the planning and preparations involved.
As Thanksgiving approached, the feeling of despair that had permeated the walls of the mine for so very long was replaced with one of hope. As a school project, Miss Helen gave the elementary school children a day off from their regular learning, supplied them with an endless supply of construction paper and Elmer’s school glue, and told them to make decorations for the mine.
The middle and high schoolers, in their own one-room schoolhouse, demanded of their teacher that they get a day off to help hang the decorations. And Miss Debbie relented, provided they were careful.
And so it was that on their last Thanksgiving Day, the mine was decorated from floor to ceiling with happy turkey-like creatures, Pilgrims with funny hats, and Native Americans hosting their visitors from afar.
Roxanne, the youngest of the Meyers girls, said, “That’s how I felt when we first came here. Like strangers violating someone else’s home. Thank you for taking us in”
As Mark and Bryan walked up to join the group, Roxanne added, “And here come the turkeys, to join our holiday fun. How appropriate.”
She immediately turned red and felt a need to apologize. But she was swarmed with hugs and high fives. She was finally comfortable enough in the group to join in the fun. She and her sister had come a very long way. They were, indeed, part of the family now.
There were eight frozen turkeys and ten frozen hams left in the walk-in freezer. Bryan had selected four of each a few days before and taken them to the kitchen. They’d use the rest of the turkeys for their last Christmas dinner in the mine a few weeks later. After that, none of them would ever eat turkey again.
Unless, of course, the wild turkeys that inhabited the area around the mine and the compound somehow found a way to survive the freeze. And no one was counting on that.
As they sat in the dining room, eating what could be the next to last turkey dinner of their lives, Mark’s eyes turned to the countdown calendar on the huge whiteboard.
The number read 180. Less than six months to go now, and if all went well, they’d leave this mine and never return.
His mind flashed back to the early days, when many of the mine’s inhabitants were meeting for the very first time and getting to know one another. It was a sorrowful time. Every one of them had friends and relatives on the outside who probably weren’t go
ing to make it. And every one of them mourned for them. Some openly, some privately. It wasn’t a happy time.
But things were different now. Strangers had become friends. And the group as a whole, even those who didn’t share bloodlines or last names, were a big, mostly happy family now. The sorrow had been replaced with an optimistic anticipation, of what awaited them out there in the brave new world outside.
Roxanne and Rachel were sharing Mark and Hannah’s table on this particular day. Roxanne somehow seemed to read Mark’s mind.
“What will it be like, out there, when we leave? I mean, you’ve told us about the compound next door. But what’s it like? Is it safe?”
Mark had a thought.
“You know, Bryan and I been wanting to go over there to check on a few things, and maybe even try to fire up the generator, to see what kinds of problems we’re going to have as we get closer to moving. We can use some helpers. If you three want to come along, we’ll finish faster.”
Hannah was instantly excited by the project.
“Hey, cool. Count me in.”
Rachel looked at her sister and said, “Us too. I’d like to check it out so I can relate to what everyone is talking about.”
“Okay. We need to do it soon, before the snow pack starts to build again. I’ll talk to Bryan and see when he wants to go.”
At that moment, Karen came around with one of her surprises.
“Sorry this is late. It wasn’t done at the same time as everything else.”
“Oh, that’s fine, Karen. The smell of fresh cranberries drifting through the place made it worth the wait.”
“I grew three bushes, but one of them died. I still don’t know why. I wish there was more, but there’s only enough for a couple of tablespoons per person. Next year, in the bigger greenhouse, I’ll be able to grow a lot more.”
Hannah got up and hugged her sister-in-law.
“Thank you, sweetie, for all that you do for us. I so love you.”
Chapter 38
Halfway across the country, at that very moment, a coup was taking place in Washington, D.C.
Before the freeze, President Martin Sanders had made a decision to take his inner circle of family, friends and cronies into the series of underground bunkers beneath the streets of Washington. With them went all members of congress and the senate, and key members of the department of defense, as well as their families.
The bunkers had been built in the 1950s and 60s, during the long cold war with the Soviet Union. They were built to withstand a nuclear blast and were meant as a temporary shelter. The idea was to protect the movers and shakers in the United States government for a few days or weeks, until it was safe for them to come out again. Then, in theory, they could move away from the decimated Washington D.C. area and command the war with the USSR from another location.
The bunkers were never intended to house a thousand politicians and their families in luxury for seven years or more, while most of the rest of D.C. slowly starved or froze to death.
To prepare the bunkers for their new mission, President Sanders spent months having it stocked with all the luxuries he was used to in his political life. Personal chefs and frozen lobster tails and crab legs by the truck load. Gold bars and fine paintings. Flat screen televisions and masseuses and barbers and hair stylists for the women. The latest in exercise equipment for the first rate gymnasium and supplies for their Olympic sized swimming pool.
Thinking he could do all of this without the American public finding out about it was Sanders’ first mistake, of course. Someone had to drive all of those truckloads of crab legs and televisions into the bunker and offload them. Those truckers weren’t included in the chosen few who would enter the bunker and lock themselves in just before Saris 7 hit.
And the barbers, and stylists, and personal chefs all had friends and family who caught wind of the plan, and who themselves weren’t given golden tickets either. Word did indeed get out, and it got out quickly.
President Sanders’ second mistake was lying to the American people when he told them he had a plan to save them. He claimed it was to prevent widespread panic. But the panic happened anyway, once the citizens found out they’d been deceived.
No, the real reason he lied and said the United States was working with the Chinese to send a nuclear warhead into outer space to blast the meteorite off course was for his own benefit. He didn’t want the American people to force him to do something he cared not do. He had a safe place to go. So did his family and friends. The American people? They could just go to hell.
And, to be fair, a lot of scientists said there was nothing he could do. That knocking the meteorite off course was a one in a million chance.
But he didn’t even try. He didn’t try because he was safe in the knowledge that he would survive, even as untold millions wouldn’t.
And it was that, the fact that he didn’t even try, that outraged the citizens.
Lastly, the President’s final mistake was assuming there would be no survivors. But nothing motivates someone to survive harsh conditions more than hatred and vengeance.
It was true that the dead outnumbered the survivors five thousand to one.
But the few hundred survivors in Washington, D.C. who made it to the thaw were livid.
They weren’t angry at Mother Nature, for bringing the wrath of the heavens down upon them.
No, they were angry at President Sanders, for taking care of himself and those close to him, while letting the others fend for themselves.
Long before the rising temperatures began to melt the snow pack, the survivors started plotting their revenge. When the summers grew warm enough for them to begin venturing out, they found the doors to the bunkers. They found the ventilation shafts that supplied the bunkers with air. And they found the underground water tanks that supplied the bunker with drinking water, and water for its Olympic sized pool.
And those few hundred survivors banded together to form their own mini-government. It was a government of the people, by the people, but its purpose wasn’t to control commerce and trade and provide for its citizens. No, its sole purpose was to take vengeance on all the people in the bunker. The ones they had come to despise. The ones they came to call “the lobster eaters.”
In the fifth year, they had taken welding equipment to each of the bunker’s doors and welded them closed. Then, as an added measure, they backed trucks up against each door, cut the brake lines and flattened the tires. The only way anyone was coming out of those doors was to somehow figure out how to break the outer welds from the inside of the bunker. Then, if they were somehow able to accomplish that impossible task, to push forty tons of dead truck weight. It wasn’t going to happen.
The main door, though, they decided not to block.
Instead, the survivors took four U.S. Army deuce and a half trucks from the Washington, D.C. armory and backed them up, side by side, to a point forty yards from the main door. On the back of each truck they mounted a twenty caliber machine gun, and aimed each gun at the door. And they manned their guns twenty four hours a day.
In the spring of the sixth year of the freeze, they wrapped all of the ventilation shafts with heavy plastic and turned off the valves on the water source.
Inside the bunker, no one had a clue why the water stopped running. Plumbers told the President that the fresh water source had been disrupted, but they didn’t know how. The one thing they never suspected that someone had done it on purpose. After all, there weren’t supposed to be any survivors on the outside.
They had underestimated the lengths to which hatred will motivate a man to survive.
Then they noticed it was getting harder and harder to breathe as each day went by. When the carbon dioxide alarms began going off intermittently, they finally figured out it wasn’t just the water that had been turned off.
Their solution was to open the doors and let in some fresh air.
But the doors wouldn’t open.
One by one they we
nt to each of the doors and unlocked them. Pushed against them. Hit them with battering rams. Nothing.
Finally, they went to the main door. A team of three men unlocked the door and it opened easily. For a brief moment they were jubilant, and cheered. Then they saw the trucks with the machine guns mounted on them. The next thing they saw was also the last… the muzzle flashes from the machine gun barrels that tore them to shreds.
Others inside the bunker managed to get the main door closed and locked again.
They were safe from the machine guns.
But not from the lack of oxygen.
And one by one over the coming days, they passed out. Some woke up again, but it would be just a temporary respite. Most simply succumbed.
As for the President and his family, they were among the last to go. Weeks earlier, when the air first started to get musty and it began to become apparent that something might be wrong, the President had his trusted aides gather compressed oxygen bottles from the decontamination pits and take them to the President’s private quarters. They sealed the quarters and used the oxygen to continue to breathe easily while others outside the quarters were dropping like flies. It was selfish and cruel, but was what should have been expected from a man who didn’t even make an effort to save his citizens.
Some in the bunker, of course, grew desperate. Several times, the main door was opened, and men tried to leave. Some waved white flags. Others yelled that they were Senator So-And-So, and actually demanded they be allowed safe passage. Some tried to plead for their lives. Others tried to bargain with food, or gold bars, or political favors.
All of them, every last one, were ripped to shreds by machine gun fire.
The men manning the guns never stopped to consider the morality of what they were doing. They were too consumed by anger and hatred. Every single one of them had family members and friends who’d died miserable and painful deaths.
If Sanders had tried to save them, they might have forgiven him. Might have spared his life. Might even have helped Sanders and the rest try to rebuild their country.
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