The Community also had to determine their food needs to get everyone through the next winter. They needed to start freezing or canning. As a matter of fact, the ice museum was still operational, making it the biggest walk-in freezer in Alaska. They would take advantage of that, but just in case, they would go with a full supply of canned goods and a full supply of frozen food. This would give them triple the quantity to survive on as they would have fresh food from the greenhouse as well. All in all, not a bad goal.
They went to work with a new determination, while still keeping a wary eye on the sky.
THE NEW ALPHA
It had been almost three weeks before we ventured back to the Hot Springs. I had forgotten that we’d let the dogs loose. I figured that once the troops left, Abigail would round them up and get them back to their posts and doghouses.
That wasn’t the case. As we approached, it was a yapping free-for-all. Dogs were everywhere. Phyllis and Husky got pretty excited, as in, completely incensed. We weren’t sure what we were going to do. We hadn’t bothered with leashes since Christmas.
“We can’t just let them go. Husky will be fine, but Phyllis will be overwhelmed.” I was dismayed. I didn’t want anything to happen to Phyllis, she had helped us through it all. “Do we have a rope, anything to use as a leash?”
“In the back. I’ll get it,” Madison offered. She opened her door and got out. Phyllis, like a shot, came over the center console and was out the front door, almost knocking Madison down in her headlong rush. Madison started yelling and chasing after her. I jumped out. Husky, following Phyllis’ lead, came out the door after me.
Immediately, Phyllis was surrounded by dogs in a typical greeting. She started growling, and one of the sled dog females growled back. Before we could work our way through the mob, Phyllis and the other female were fur over paws fighting. Phyllis outweighed the sled dog by some thirty pounds, but the Alaskan husky was quicker.
That didn’t last long. Phyllis bowled over the other female in a bull rush and clamped down on the other dog’s ear. She shook her head, just to maintain the other dog’s attention. It was yelping in pain, and then it stopped fighting. Phyllis wouldn’t let go. Her jaws were locked in place.
We finally made it through the other dogs to her. It took a while and much yelling to get her to let go. The other dog’s ear was mangled and bleeding. Once the other female was free, there was a complete change in the rest of the dogs. With her victory over the Alpha female, Phyllis was now queen of the pack. Although I held a tight grip on her collar, I knew that we couldn’t keep her leashed forever. In this world, you wanted the Alpha on your side.
I let her go.
“What are you doing?” Madison yelled at me, as she tried to get past me to Phyllis. I held her back.
“See? Phyllis didn’t kill the other dog.” Wasn’t that our worry? We didn’t want anything to happen to her, and now nothing would. I put my arm around Madison, as we watched Phyllis tear into the middle of the pack, tail wagging and play biting. Even the defeated Alpha joined in, tail up and running alongside the others.
“We better do something about that ear. Abigail!”
THE INTRODUCTION
The past couple weeks had been stressful, so we took the twins swimming. It was always relaxing to float around in the ninety-six-degree water of the pool. We even took the opportunity to go to the rock pool outside. At a hundred and five degrees, more or less, it made for a deep-muscle-cleansing experience. We only went down as far as the bottom of the ramp, so we could stay close to the twins. They were sitting in the shallows at the top of the ramp.
We wrapped things up lazily and headed inside for some nice long showers. As we walked out of the pool house, we saw a massive pile of sleeping dogs under the trees. We had to look around to find Phyllis. She was off to one side, but still a part of the pile. Husky was nowhere to be seen.
“Phyllis!” Her head rolled around, and her eyes cracked, barely. “C’mon Phyllis! Let’s get some lunch.” I had never seen her this exhausted. And sore. She was probably older than most of the sled dogs, but she had tried to keep up with them. Some straggly-looking dogs started getting pushed around like stuffed animals as Husky raised her head from the bottom of the pile. “You, too,” I told her.
They walked slowly over to us. I scratched behind their ears and held the door for them.
Madison went into the kitchen to see if she could help while I got the twins ready for their lunch. Their highchairs were a permanent fixture in the dining room. As people did, everyone had their own table with their own chairs. Everyone sat in the same place every day, even if only one person was there. People can only tolerate a certain amount of change. They liked certain things to remain constant, predictable.
Amber and Lucas were the first ones to join us. They were both especially attentive to the twins, giving me a cursory greeting on their way in. Then again, the twins were fun most of the time, and they loved the attention. I was certain that trouble would start soon if one perceived that too much attention was being paid to the other. I’d let it run its course.
People filtered in over the next ten minutes, the last ones being Sam and Martha. I rose to greet them and everyone looked on in silence. Martha had a tray of cupcakes held out in front of her. She smiled sweetly at everyone and introduced herself and her husband, Sam. She put the tray down and then gestured for everyone to please help themselves. As a guest, one always brought something for the host.
For people who lived alone, Sam and Martha worked the crowd like professionals. They listened carefully as everyone said their names, repeating them back to help them remember. And just like that, Martha was off to the kitchen.
“Sam, can I offer you a cup of coffee?” I said with a huge grin. He looked at me like a sailor who’s been lost at sea finally getting a drink of fresh water. I got a cup from the pot that was always on. It was a little stale, maybe even burnt. “It’s been cooking for a bit, so it could be strong. I’ll make a new pot.”
He took the cup from me and looked into the blackness of the liquid as if trying to divine the future. He carefully took a small sip, closing his eyes as he held it in his mouth. He finally swallowed and then took another drink, bigger this time.
“That’s really good!” he exclaimed to everyone’s laughter. Martha’s face appeared behind the door to the kitchen. She shook her head and smiled at her husband.
THE GROWING COMMUNITY
With the two new additions to the Community, we now numbered fifteen. This could have created a minor controversy as everyone already had their seats. There were no spare chairs at the tables.
But this was easily remedied. A small table was brought from the back room and butted up against one of the other tables. Two chairs were added and Sam and Martha had been officially welcomed aboard. I let them in on the inside joke of “assigned seating.”
Lunch started with a salad, as usual, and the main course was a beef stroganoff that Jo and Madison had put together. Martha offered to clean up after lunch, and Chris said he would help her since it was his turn.
Sam wanted to see the geothermal power plant. He had been an engineer and thought it sounded interesting. Lucas said he’d be honored to show Sam around.
It was a good day. As Sam had shown us, it was important to appreciate the little things. To Sam, bad coffee was better than good tea. Seeing people laugh made everything okay. It said that at least in this moment in time, life was good.
The meal was exceptional, as always, and we complimented the chef. Jo stood and took a bow, and Sam and Martha started clapping. We all joined in.
As the clapping died down, Amber and Lucas stood up. “We have an announcement,” Amber started. My mind immediately leapt to the conclusion that they were getting married. I wondered how we could accomplish that.
“I’m pregnant,” Amber stated tentatively. Madison was the first one up to give Amber a hug. The others were stunned into a brief silence, but then the congratulations s
tarted. Colleen took a more clinical approach in that she wanted to “look things over.”
My only thought was, They could still get married.
Martha beamed the look of a grandmother. I wondered if they had children. I assumed they did as they had pictures in their cabin that gave the impression of a big family. I would have to ask.
With a maybe November due date, we had plenty of time to get ready, whatever that meant. Even though we had twins, I had no idea what needed to be done. I’d leave that to the experts.
“Amber! Let me offer a toast in congratulations to you and Lucas,” I said. We lifted our glasses of Coke and spring water. “I want to say that you have been stalwart from day one, the first day we came to Chena Hot Springs. You helped everyone to keep things running. You carried us all on your shoulders and have become a good friend.” There were a few hearty agreements, while others nodded. Amber was well liked. “You know we’ll do whatever you need us to. So what do you need?”
She and Lucas smiled as they held hands. I hadn’t been sure how they would turn out as a couple, but it wasn’t my place to judge or even guess. It was my place to support my wife and children and do right by the others. That was all. Sometimes I could be such a wiener. And here, while they were making their big announcement, I was thinking about me. I clamped down on myself and focused on them, hearing Amber mid-sentence,
“...incredible journey, in the company of friends. You guys have always been so supportive and helpful to me. We appreciate the offer of help, but I don’t know what we need. Any suggestions from our mothers out there?” She looked at Madison, then Colleen, and finally Martha.
Despite our attempts to break down gender barriers, there we were. Three mothers and one mother-to-be heading into the kitchen to talk and clean up. The rest of us carried in all the dishes and cleaned off the tables in the dining room. Madison came back out and grabbed the twins, giving me a quick kiss before herding them into the kitchen.
“Well, it’s just us,” I said to Phyllis and Husky. The others went their own way, many going with Lucas and Sam to the power plant. Felicia was headed to the greenhouse.
“Could you use a hand?” I asked
She nodded. Once outside, Phyllis and Husky disappeared into a newly energized dog pack, while Abigail started chasing the former Alpha female. We had forgotten to tell her about the dog fight. She didn’t seem phased by the dog’s injury as she got ahold of the dog’s collar and pulled her toward the new infirmary, a small cabin just outside the lodge.
Well, it didn’t matter which dog did the biting, did it, so I didn’t share what I knew. I didn’t want to get in trouble with Abigail.
SPENDING SUMMER PREPARING FOR WINTER
The summer passed quickly. We tended our garden. We gathered jars and Ziplocs from other people’s long-empty homes. We even found a vacuum-seal machine with a number of bags.
As we were waiting for our first crops to come in, we tried our hand at fishing the Chena River. We hoped that any contamination had washed away, allowing the salmon a free shot upstream. It wasn’t to be. The only fish we caught were grayling. So we filleted our catches and ate them fresh. We didn’t have enough to make it worth our while to freeze.
The first crop to come in was the green beans. We nurtured them from the start. Madison’s parents always had home-canned green beans available. We had developed a taste for them long ago.
We froze half the green beans and canned the other half. We did something wrong in the canning process as only half the cans sealed. We ate the ones that didn’t seal and then went back to the book to try and figure out what we’d done wrong. Then we brought in the experts.
Sam and Martha came by for a visit. We stocked them up on gasoline, filling a fifty-five-gallon barrel that we strapped into the back of their truck, so they were far more mobile. We tried to talk them into “borrowing” a better truck, but they wouldn’t have any of that. We respected them for their convictions and hoped that their truck wouldn’t break down at an inopportune time.
We had our gardening books, but we still had some trial and error. With their guidance on round two of canning, everything went perfectly. Just a little more salt here. Hold the pressure for one more minute there. There’s nothing like wisdom gained from experience.
We didn’t have to go very far to find wild berries where there wasn’t any competition except for birds. We picked gallons upon gallons. The twins’ fingers were blue and red, I thought maybe permanently. We made jellies out of some and froze the rest. I could probably go months without seeing another berry, although we exhausted all the sugar we’d found while “shopping.” Martha was comforting during the whole process.
We had our twenty cord of wood in place. We did test runs with the wood stove, and it worked great. I needed a lot of kindling. I was so bad at starting a fire that even the twins were embarrassed.
We never found a source for more kerosene. Burning fuel oil in the kerosene heater just didn’t work. It mucked up the wick and belched toxic smoke.
With the big generator, we could run our boiler and all the water circulation pumps. We filled two aboveground five-hundred-gallon tanks with gasoline from the gas station to keep the generator going, also making sure we had enough water to get us through the winter. We increased our storage capacity to about four thousand gallons, but that meant we had to put a number of five-hundred-gallon tanks into the garage. If it wasn’t firewood, it was water tanks. We had no room for our vehicles. Those would have to stay outside in the weather, although we had enough power to plug in their block heaters. We needed more heated garage space. Maybe next summer we’d add on. There was enough building materials around that I could use.
We had fully embraced our new world, no longer expecting to be rescued or that we’d even leave. We spent all summer getting ready for winter. When the cold and snow came, we would be ready. We wouldn’t have as many tomatoes as we had hoped. Some of them just weren’t growing like they should. I had a recipe for green tomato salsa. We would make that.
Aside from being successful getting ready for the winter, my biggest personal win was in finding more asthma medication. I took care with the ones I had, finally running out in June. By August, I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran out of breath easily while doing things that I had to do. I woke up in the middle of the night, gasping for breath. I needed the medications or I would go downhill even faster. The thought of leaving Madison alone with the twins in this environment was too much.
I took our trusty Geiger counter and drove to the west side of the city, then to the Walgreens there. Fred Meyer was next door, but was half caved-in from the original detonation. I intended to search both. I brought my “shopping” tools, along with a full coverall, the gas mask, gloves, and the remainder of a roll of duct tape. The world will truly end when one runs out of duct tape. It will be the last thing used to repair the old technology.
Walgreens was a little radioactive on the outside, but not too bad. My ad hoc radiation suit, gas mask, and gloves protected me. The store had been looted, but they hadn’t gone after what I needed. Inside the store, I realized that there was almost no contamination. I kept on my suit as I would have to go back outside, but I took off my gas mask and put it on the front counter. I was having a very hard time breathing while wearing it.
The cash register had been broken open. I snorted. How’s that money serving you now? I expected that the two I shot were the ones who had been here. It made me angry all over again to think about them. They killed survivors while searching for a valueless treasure.
I let the thoughts go. I climbed through debris in the aisles. Many of the shelves had fallen over. Animals had been in here.
I went back to the pharmacy where the decomposing body of the pharmacist was slumped over his long-dead computer. I didn’t touch him. I knew what my medications looked like. From television commercials before, I thought that Advair might be a reasonable replacement. It was better than nothing. I thought of that as
I came across some boxes of the inhaler on the floor. I took them all. I kept searching. I found one of my two medications. They only had twelve, thirty-day packs of these, but that meant two years of medication, four with rationing. I was so happy. I opened one immediately and took a puff. I waited a few breaths and took another, breathing the medication in as deeply as I could. If only I could find the same thing in my one other inhaled capsule.
On the way out, I checked through the aisles. I found some honey and took that. I also took a number of candy bars as a gift for the young folks of the Community. They had burned through the stock of candy quickly last winter. I also found plenty of beef jerky. I took that, too. There was a good deal of canned goods, although most of it was processed food that wasn’t good for us. We didn’t need that stuff anymore. Or want it.
I wanted to find my second medication, so that meant I had to brave the falling-down structure of Fred’s. The pharmacy was toward the front of the store, where the caved-in roof was the worst. I had to break down the half door from a kneeling position since there was so much debris on top, held up by the shelving and remaining walls. I crawled into the back. It took me two hours to search an area the size of our great room. It was dark and dusty. I found more Advair, but none of the capsules to complete my original prescription. It would have to do. At least I had more than when I started.
I left with my treasures and went home. We could return. Because of the caved-in roof, Fred’s canned foods were protected. This would be a source of goods for years to come. I wondered why survivors from this side of town had not cleaned out the store. Maybe they were afraid of the radiation, as they should have been and if they knew about it. We had the benefit of a Geiger counter. The inside of Fred’s grocery store was not toxic. Maybe it was the falling-down roof. Knowing didn’t matter. The important thing was that we had a mostly stocked grocery store to ourselves.
Run (End Times Alaska Book 2) Page 6
