Run (End Times Alaska Book 2)

by Craig Martelle

  No people. The most disturbing view of all. I waited, watching and listening. Nothing.

  I checked the time. I had only been gone for two hours, yet it felt like it was time to go home. I took off my coveralls, leaving me in my shorts and a T-shirt. It was too cold for just that, but I felt like I needed the freedom. I rolled the windows up on the Jeep and turned the heater on high.

  I headed home.

  MORE SURVIVORS

  Madison wanted to go back into town and check on our friends to the west. I didn’t see why we couldn’t leave as soon as I topped off the tank on the Jeep. We could be back in town in less than an hour, and it still wouldn’t be noon.

  We loaded up the twins. They were excited for a drive. They enjoyed the snow-machine drive to Chena Hot Springs, but it was cold for them. They had goggles and little bike helmets we made them wear, but in the Jeep, they were in their car seats and had a good view out the window. We had to adjust the straps on their seats. We hadn’t realized how much they had grown in the past six months.

  We even packed a lunch for a picnic. And our usual tools, just in case, including our new Geiger counter.

  The twins would see death in all forms. We would have to drive by the two men I had killed. We would pass cars with clearly dead people inside. They did not look like they were sleeping. They looked like the zombie apocalypse, although the twins would not get the reference. They would have to form their own opinions of what death like this meant. I didn’t know if they were ready, but as long as we didn’t let it bother us, they should be okay. They were going to see it sooner or later. I wasn’t one for sheltering them, especially not in this new world where we found ourselves.

  We drove off, taking the shortcut up Bennett to Steese on the way to Goldstream.

  As we headed down the hill on Steese Highway, just after Bennett, we saw two trucks driving up the hill. This was a four-lane highway so we wouldn’t pass that closely. I stopped close to the barrier dividing the lanes and got out, waving to them as they approached. I had my right hand on the .45 underneath my light jacket. As they got closer, I could see that it looked like a family or two. I relaxed.

  They pulled close and stopped.

  “Howdy!” a heavily bearded older man bellowed as he reached over the barrier to shake my hand. “You’re the first people we’ve seen down this way.”

  “We’re going to be the only people you see down here. Where are you coming from?”

  “Circle,” he replied with a nod. A small town about a hundred and fifty miles up the Steese Highway, it was named Circle because it was originally thought to be the first town inside the Arctic Circle. Unfortunately, the original settlers were off a bit, so Circle is south of the Arctic Circle. “What do you mean you’re the only people?”

  “A nuclear detonation destroyed the city. When you get on toward Farmer’s Loop, you’ll see. There’s nothing left. Don’t continue too far down that road. I think it’s still radioactive on that side of the city. If you are headed south toward Denali or Anchorage, I recommend taking Goldstream around the city, and then jump onto Parks Highway west of the University.

  “How many people are still up there in Circle?” I asked, looking about. The others had gotten out of the two trucks. They had two small children, a little older than the twins, so Madison started the introductions.

  “Most people leave in the winter. I don’t know, maybe seventy-five or a hundred people? We’ve come to resupply. We are about out of food and gas,” the old man said.

  “You won’t find anything you need going this way. How about the gas station in Fox?” I offered.

  “There wasn’t anyone there. It looked like it was closed. We saw a lot of that on the drive.”

  “Let’s head up there and see what we can find,” I offered. Everyone repacked into their vehicles. They turned around and headed downhill. The fact that they were going the wrong way was old world thinking. There wasn’t anyone here to go the other way. We met back up at the gas station.

  It had been looted, but there was still fuel in their tanks. We got the unleaded open with little trouble. They had a hand crank fuel pump with them because they had brought a couple barrels to fill. We used some duct tape and a hose to give us the reach we needed to get into the tank.

  We found some cans of Chef Boyardee in the store. There was a picnic table outside, and everyone gathered around it. We made introductions all the way around.

  Bill was the grandfather. His daughter and grandson traveled with him. James was Bill’s son. He drove the other truck with his wife, their two kids, and two dogs.

  We broke out all the food we had and the canned goods from the convenience store to make a decent meal. It was energizing to help these people out, although the only thing we did was to get them some fuel. They still needed food. I wondered what kind of canned goods we would find at the Silver Gulch restaurant, which was right across the road. I suggested Bill and his son join me while we went to take a look.

  Madison looked at me, not wanting to be left alone with strangers.

  “Hell, what does it matter? Let’s all go,” I said to the whole group. We walked the hundred yards or so to the restaurant. The front door was open. The gift shop register had been broken into. I shook my head.

  The bar area had been ravaged; broken bottles were everywhere. James corralled his dogs and put them back outside. We kept a tight grip on the twins so they wouldn’t get into any of the glass. Then we chased them outside, too. All the children had a good time playing outside together. Bill’s daughter and Madison watched them as we worked.

  We looked for the restaurant’s food-storage area. We went through the kitchen to a small room beyond. It wasn’t as big as I’d assumed it would be. I’d always imagined vast warehouses supporting a restaurant, when it’s usually little more than a large pantry. And that’s what was here, although it was packed pretty tightly. Silver Gulch liked serving mostly fresh foods, so there wasn’t much in the way of canned vegetables. There were various soup bases to which you could add fresh vegetables and voila! You’d have a custom soup. We handed all of this out.

  There were bags of flour, sugar, salt, cooking oils, and everything to make meals from scratch. I’d never really thought about what they would have if they did their own baking. I’d always incorrectly assumed they had mostly premade dishes. Good for Silver Gulch! For what it was worth anyway.

  Foods in the freezer were still frozen solid. That was a good sign. The family had brought coolers with them and filled them up with what they thought important from the freezer, as many vegetables as they could find.

  They had to bring their trucks closer as they took most of what was there. We found a dolly and used that to carry out the supplies. After five trips each, we had taken everything that would fit in the back of their trucks.

  Once the trucks were loaded, there was no reason to spend further time milling about. They wanted to get back home. I encouraged them to drive to town and take a look for themselves first. They needed to share what they saw.

  WHAT NEXT

  After we parted ways, Madison and I looked at each other. “We didn’t really tell them anything about ourselves or how we survived.” Was that the introvert in us? Or was it fear?

  How much of our former lives was a façade? We were comfortable with each other and our own family, but we did not open up to anyone else. Before the explosion, we spent time with other people. Madison was a professor! She was constantly in front of others. She missed her life from before, or did she? I thought so, but I wasn’t sure.

  What did people in the Community of Chena Hot Springs know about us? How much had we shared with them?

  I hate to say it, but we preferred this new world where we dealt with other people on our terms. This could be dangerous as the less we were with others, the less we would want to be around other people.

  The twins seemed to enjoy the company. They played on the mining cars on display outside the restaurant. They even played
some game with the other kids.

  We still had time to go into town, but not enough time to explore. We headed out and took Goldstream. We followed it past Ballaine, where it turned into Sheep Creek. This took us around the back of the University where we could jump over to Geist and then Chena Ridge. We would avoid areas of damage from the explosion, the downed wires, and some of the fires. We would bypass areas that we knew were littered with dead cars and dead people.

  As we approached the area on Goldstream where the two dead men were, Madison distracted the twins by making them look to their right. We raced by and kept going. The twins never saw a thing. I pointed to the old lady’s house as we drove past and later to the two brothers’ house. We continued past Ivory Jacks (always free parking, as their jingle used to state on the radio) to Sheep Creek Road.

  Unlike our previous trips, we saw signs of people at home. We saw tracks trailing mud onto the road from more than one driveway that disappeared up the hillside. We saw smoke in the trees from a chimney.

  We didn’t stop. We were on a mission to see if our friends had made it. The far-west side of town looked more abandoned than damaged. The stores had seen damage, but from vandalism and theft, not the explosion. It didn’t look like anyone had been there for quite a while.

  We continued up Chena Ridge Road to the top of the hill, a right, then a quick left, and we were on the home stretch to our friends’ house. They were a married couple, one a professor and the other retired at home. Sounded like Madison and I.

  They had two trucks and a car, and all three of them were in the driveway of their log cabin. The initial impression was that their house was abandoned. But why wouldn’t they take any of their vehicles? We stopped on the road and walked down to the house. The twins knew where we were and wanted to race to the door. I held them back while Madison knocked. No answer. She tested the door. It was unlocked.

  She went in. I heard her gasp and she came back out, covering her mouth with her hand. She stumbled a few steps, then threw up over their porch rail. I immediately started herding the twins back toward our vehicle.

  I went to Madison and held her. She slowly shook her head. I helped her back to the Jeep. She sighed. I didn’t realize how much she had hoped they would come through it all. Our inner circle of friends had shrunk even further. “I don’t know what to say,” I told her.

  “There’s nothing to say. They’re gone.” She looked up at me and then at the serenity of their home. Only nature wafted on the breeze. Birds. Tree branches rustling. Something rooting around in the underbrush. The smell of spring. Puffy clouds in a blue sky. Madison calmed down quickly. We were resigned to tragedy in this world. We had our family, and that was always most important. It was our foundation.

  “Do you think they’d mind if we borrowed their truck, assuming its electronics weren’t burned out?” I asked. She looked at me oddly and then understood. Maybe a parting gift from our friends. If it had been the other way around, we would have readily given them everything we had. I expect that they felt the same way about us.

  Madison got into the driver’s seat of the Jeep and adjusted it for herself. I went back to the house. They kept their keys by the front door. They were still there. I had to look. They were coupled together on their couch, partially decomposed. I covered them up all the way. I took the keys and closed the door behind me.

  Their generator sat on the porch, still connected to their external wall outlet. It was a powerful generator that ran their house when there was no electricity. It would do the same for most of our house. It was what I had been looking for. I unhooked it, rolling up the 220v cable. I moved the generator to the steps and then carefully bounced it down, one step at a time, stopping and balancing it on the third step up.

  I tried to start the truck, but there were only the telltale clicks of a nearly dead battery. I asked Madison to pull our Jeep down so I could jump it.

  Once started, I backed the truck up to the steps and muscled the generator into the back. I also took the two gas cans that they had. One was still half full.

  I wondered if they had gone into town looking for supplies when it was still radioactive down there.

  I turned back to the house. “Thank you both. You will always be our friends.”

  Madison backed onto the road. I followed her out.

  WHAT TO DO ABOUT SURVIVORS

  We drove back fairly quickly. I knew that Madison just wanted to be home. I wanted to be home, too. I would never forget what I saw. There was so much tragedy. So many people.

  As I drove, I looked out and thought that maybe five or six homes were occupied. I couldn’t see any of the houses from the road. Then again, maybe it was only one house with survivors and the same vehicle making tracks at the other houses. If they were anything like us, they needed to find supplies. Maybe they were better at the prepper thing than I was, but was anyone ready for six months when you lived this close to the city?

  I might make a trip back here at some point, but not anytime soon. The survivors from Circle had gone back home. They would share and then those folks would probably dig in. They wouldn’t have to be ready for an influx of the summer people. I couldn’t believe that anyone was coming back. Not this year.

  It was springtime. The weather had turned and the city wouldn’t kill you. Not the western side anyway. I expected anything towards the army post was still too hot to survive. Maybe even down towards North Pole. There was a back way to North Pole on Nordale Road, off Chena Hot Springs Road. That was how John would have gone.

  I didn’t expect him back, but was curious as to what he had found. Did he get the sickness, radiation poisoning? Who knew what his plan was once he left the Community. His absence was one of the best things that ever happened out there. One person. A cancer to all. Look where they were now!

  And then there was Colleen. She was making do. Her engagement with the Community had brought her back to life. Although, when she thought no one was watching, you could see her sadness. She would never be the same, could never be the same. We didn’t know her before, but I knew she had to be different, happier then.

  I would always want to return home at the end of the day. Home. Where we lived now, austerely, but it was our home, and we were comfortable there. I think we were the happiest we’d ever been.

  THE PLANTS ARE GROWING

  As our garden came in, I was like a little kid at Christmas. Shoots appeared from the seeds, and the seedlings started expanding like mad. We even heated the garden with a small fire when it was too cold.

  We watched the temperatures closely, and as it got back toward freezing, we covered everything up. On our little weather station in the house, we were able to set an alarm to go off when temperatures hit thirty-five degrees. It was annoying, but it would only take one freeze to ruin everything. We planted much earlier than the norm of Memorial Day, but we needed the extended growing season. I wanted everything to come in fully before the fall cold set in. I also wanted a chance to replant if we did something wrong.

  We still had a number of seedlings in the greenhouse. We even planted new seeds, just in case. The greenhouse was nice and warm as the spring sun hit it. We didn’t need to use the generator to heat it any more.

  Plus, we had the greenhouse at Chena Hot Springs if anything went terribly wrong. As it was, we got our fresh vegetable fix every week. We could have grown lazy and counted on that, but we needed to make do on our own. What if the Community decided that they would all leave? Then, we’d support them, but it would mean the demise, over time, of the facilities at the resort. With nine people, they were able to keep up, mostly. But it took a great deal of work.

  If they left, it wouldn’t take long, I supposed, and it would be no more.

  If they left, would we move there? Could the four of us keep it up? Interesting thought, but my preference was that they stayed. It was selfish, but I hadn’t pushed my opinion on them. They gave us a vote in their affairs, but we had not exercised it. We would not exe
rcise it. Their destiny was theirs to control.

  And in the interim, we had a garden to tend. The thing with maintaining a garden was that you had plenty of time for philosophical thought. That’s probably why people like J. R. R. Tolkien had masterful gardens.

  After it warmed up, we moved back into the rest of the house, opened the windows, and let the good air flow. We even had our friends’ generator hooked up through our dryer vent and plugged into the dryer’s 220v plug. With standard power (alternating current vs direct current), it doesn’t matter where the power originates as long as there is only one source. With the power, our water pump ran and, amazingly, our sewer line to the septic tank had not burst. We had running water again, which was a bit dangerous as we were limited to how much water we had in our tank.

  Some things you just don’t need to worry about until you need to do something. Then you do what needs to be done and move on. We worried a great deal less nowadays. We knew what we were capable of, and we knew we were going to survive. We had a plan that probably mirrored the plan of people from hundreds of years ago. Heat, water, food, shelter. And enjoy the heck out of life.

  TAKING FLIGHT

  It had been two months since Lucas’s accident. His arm was back to about fifty percent. He could feel his fingers and manipulate his hand. He had little strength, but he was able to manage. He learned that he could do a great deal with his left hand, but writing and eating remained wholly right-handed endeavors.

  He had also found avgas and was able to get the plane started. He taxied it around the runway and on the parking apron. He was getting comfortable working it. He felt ready to take flight, but wasn’t ready to go alone. Amber tried to talk him out of it.