by Don Reardon
“You had the key to the cabinet outside. She wasn’t having nothing to do with me, anyways. I don’t think she would have taken one of my guns if I’d offered. And who the hell is the hunter?” Red asked.
John took the glass from the girl, slammed it on the table, and sat down on one of the folding chairs. He sat for a few minutes with the girl standing beside him. He stood up and looked at the monitor, half expecting to see the old woman, or the boy he had mistaken as Alex struggling against the blizzard picking up outside.
“You’re not going to drink more and get drunk, are you?” she asked in a quiet whisper.
He pulled his parka back on and stood at the door. “Let me see if I can catch up with her,” he said. “We’re not getting drunk. Don’t worry.”
He put his arms around her. He’d never held her that way before, tightly in his arms; he’d never tried to comfort her like that.
“I’ll find her,” he said.
ANNA AND JOHN hid out in their home, listening to the AM radio and waiting for the all-clear sign.
“I wish we had a goddamn phone,” Anna said, while she heated up the teakettle. “I just want to call Mom to tell her we’re okay.”
“She knows you’re fine.”
“It’s just sort of ridiculous that we don’t have a phone, you know. In this day and age. It didn’t bother me until now.”
“Or running water. The bucket is about full, and I’m not exactly thrilled to go dump it with everyone sick like this,” he said.
“Do you think I could just run over to the school and call her?”
“No. Why don’t you just email her?”
“The stupid internet isn’t connecting. Plus, that’s not the same, John. She needs to hear my voice. She needs to know this is just temporary and that we’re okay.”
“Shh—news time.”
John turned up the volume on the radio he had brought home from the school.
The reporter’s voice sounded thousands of miles away through the radio’s single speaker. “For KYUK News, I’m Shane Keller. Here is a look at our top local stories. Army guard troops from the region may have their deployment extended. Lower Kuskokwim School District has cancelled class district-wide in response to a respiratory infection that has hit many area villages. Local health officials call for help from state and federal agencies to respond to the growing number of sick infants. And the controversial free fuel program from Venezuela will continue this year, but an announcement that fuel will be delayed until spring is drawing concern from local leaders who say supplies are already too low. All this and more for your KYUK midday news report.”
“Turn it off,” Anna said. “I can’t listen to it any more. How many more ways can they say more people are sick and nothing is being done? No one is doing anything to help! How can they just sit back and do nothing?”
John shrugged. He turned the radio off and looked out the window. The village was a picture of lifelessness. Nothing moved outside except for a few thin golden grass stalks poking out through the snow. The winds shook the small dead stalks. No children played. No snow machines zipped past. For all he knew, the entire village had disappeared during the night.
32
When he returned without the old woman, they ate their dinner in complete silence. When he was done, John ran a finger around his bowl and licked it. The curry powder had given the canned chicken a strangely exotic flavour. That or his tongue had stopped working the way it was supposed to. He set his bowl down and picked a piece of meat from between his teeth with a fingernail.
“Which way did she go?” the girl asked.
“Toward the river,” he said.
“She’ll be okay,” the girl said. “Maybe she’ll go—where we talked about meeting up if we needed to, or somewhere else, somewhere safe.”
John looked over to the girl. She hadn’t touched her dinner yet.
“Maybe,” he said. “I wish you’d made her stay. I’m worried. She’s unarmed.”
“Good luck making that old woman do anything you say,” Red said.
“I tried,” Rayna said. “I really tried, John.”
“Well, I guess I can’t sit here and worry about her. I can’t. I mean I tried, but the wind. Her tracks were disappearing and I didn’t know if I could find my way back. We’ve got enough to worry about. I can’t worry about some old woman,” John said.
“The hunter,” Red said, in a half statement, half question.
John rested his head in his hands. “She kept talking about some man she thought she saw. Someone in all white, travelling downriver.”
“Not an outcast. Someone else,” the girl added. “Tell him about the hunter, John.”
“It’s probably nothing. We cut some ski tracks at the mouth of the Johnson River.”
“Ski tracks? Like cross-country skis?” Red bit at his lip and stood up. He turned to the teapot and pressed his hand against the metal to see if the water was still warm. He turned the burner on and sat back down. “I don’t like that news. Not one bit,” he said. “Ski tracks? Are you sure? Not a dogsled or something?”
John nodded and took a drink of water and then reached over and took Rayna’s right hand. He opened her fingers and slid the spoon between them. He lifted her hand and guided the spoon into the curry broth. She didn’t resist as he brought her hand to her lips. She opened, and sipped the warm curry. He let go and she slowly dipped her spoon and began feeding herself.
“I want to check out what’s here in town. See if I can salvage anything that will help us head upriver. Something to make travel a little easier.”
“To help us find my cousins and the other kids,” Rayna said. “And Maggie,” she added.
“What cousins are you looking for?” Red asked.
“In Kuigpak, most of the kids disappeared. My cousins. I think they are still alive somewhere. I’m going to find them.”
Red looked at John and John lifted a finger to his lips so that Red knew the girl didn’t understand there were no cousins, no survivors.
“We’re going for help first,” John said. “We need to get help.”
“Well, I can help you with that conundrum. There’s nothing worth salvaging in this town. And no reason to head upriver.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bethel’s been picked clean. You’ve got more food on that sled than you’ll find in this whole region. As far as fuel, snow machines— whatever you’re hoping to find for transport, you’ve got to be crazy to think you’re the first one to have looked. I can tell you that first hand. And then there’s the others. Two groups of them so far as I can tell. Not sure how they’re getting by, not sure I want to know. Bethel’s version of her outcasts. They pretty much took over town, month or so after the bug hit bad, but I don’t know what’s become of them. Bad has a way of burning itself out.”
“What about heading upriver? Seems like the only way to go.”
“Way to go? Boy, I’ll say.” Red stood up and collected John’s bowl. “Way to die, maybe.” He went to the pot and divvied up the remaining chicken and curry and handed his bowl back. He poured a scoop into Rayna’s dish.
“There’s chicken in there—you can use your hands for that leg,” he said to her. “It’s on the right side of your bowl.”
“Thanks,” she said. “It’s yummy. It’s really good, Red. I never thought I would eat real food again.”
Red sat back down and sipped a spoonful and then licked his lips.
“You’re talking about travelling a helluva long ways, through some damned unforgiving land, for what? To find out if the rest of the world went to shit, too? Let me guess. Your plan is to make it to McGrath, then cut across the Iditarod Trail and head east through the mountains to Anchorage, the cradle of civili-fargin-zation. How long has it taken you to get this far? What, thirty or forty miles?”
“A while.”
Red nodded. “A while, right. How long do you think it will take you to just get to McGrath, five hundred some
miles? And with that heavy food supply and no skis or snowshoes? No trail? Not to mention the snow gets deeper and the ice gets thinner each step that direction. Best bet is to stick here with me. If there is a hunter out there, you’re safest here, with me.”
The strange man stared across the table at him. John shifted in his chair and turned his eyes toward what was left in his bowl. He could feel Red’s gaze still on him.
“I don’t mean to take away your hope, John,” Red said. “But your plan ain’t in the least bit realistic—especially not when you’re already malnourished and toting a blind girl with you to boot—no offence, Rayna. If you could even get there, what do you expect to find?”
John shrugged.
“It’s like being stuck in an old rusty leg trap. You can gnaw your leg clean off and get free, but you’re still going to be out one leg. Say you make it. Say people aren’t sick. That means they accepted this mess. They quarantined us and never came to help. Never made a food drop. Nothing. Who could live with people that would allow us to suffer like this? Or let’s say you make it there—you travel damn near a thousand miles only to find it hit them, too. Then what? Keep travelling toward Seattle?”
John suddenly felt full. His body flushed hot. His stomach rolled. He felt trapped inside the tank. He slid back his chair from the table and stood up. He walked to the door, unbolted it, and cracked it just enough to stick his nose and mouth out. He took a deep breath of the cold racing in.
He shut the door, bolted it, and rested his cheek against the cool metal. He clenched his abdominal muscles and tried to will them to hold his dinner down.
“You okay?” Red asked.
“Just not used to being so full,” he said, sitting back down, and then standing and walking around the room.
Red let out a long, low belch. “Me neither.”
The girl finally took one of the pieces of chicken from her bowl and gently began to pull the meat from the bone. The two of them watched her and sat in silence while she ate.
She finished chewing the end of a bone and set it into her bowl. She reached across the table and took John’s hand. “We should find Maggie and the kids and make sure they are safe first,” she said.
THE LIGHTS FLICKERED and Anna posed a terrible question that he hadn’t considered. “What happens if the power goes out?” she asked.
They were lying in bed, reading. The lamp beside their bed flickered again. She closed her book and rolled over and rested her head on his chest. Her skin felt too warm against his, but she always felt warm against him.
“What if the person who runs the village’s power gets sick? Or his family? What then?”
“Don’t be such a doomsayer, Anna. You’re always giving me crap about my unholy statements. Where’s your hope?”
“I’m serious. What if the power goes out? How will we stay warm? It’s not like we have a woodstove, or any other options. If the power goes out, we won’t have heat, John. No communications, nothing. Nothing!”
“It’s not going to go out. Besides, if it did, we’ve got good sleeping bags. We can always generate our own heat, too, you know.”
He thrust against her with his hips.
“Don’t! I’m serious!”
She rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling.
“If this gets really bad, how long do you think it will take for someone to come help? I mean—they won’t wait too long, will they? What would we do? We’re so screwed, you know? We’re helpless, aren’t we? We might as well be on a desert island. What are we going to do? Walk out of here?”
He shrugged and pretended to read his book. He was worried her questions were building to some sort of hysterical breakdown again. She wasn’t dealing well with being cooped up, and neither was he, and her constant fretting didn’t help anything.
“I feel funny. Not sick. Just funny. You know? Probably dehydrated. We’re going to have to get water tomorrow from the school. No matter what.”
The light winked out for a moment and then popped back on. The power often fluctuated in the village, but the brief flicker felt ominous.
She turned away from him, curled up into a ball, and began to sob. He didn’t know what to tell her, so he said nothing and just rubbed her shoulder with his palm; then he turned off the light and put his arms around her.
33
Red insisted that Rayna and John sleep on the bed. He pulled an old green army cot out from under the mattress and John helped him set it up. Red didn’t have the strength to snap the two metal end bars into place, and John surprised himself when he got them both on the first try. The new food supply was definitely helping his muscles recover.
They settled into the bed, the girl on the side against the wall, and John on the outside. The cotton sheets weren’t exactly clean, but he didn’t care. They were a nice change from the dirty nylon sleeping bag.
Red laid out a blanket on the cot, took an extra pillow from beneath the bed, and then stood by the small screen and took one last look at the images from the surveillance cameras.
“I still have a hard time believing that you have that system working, when there isn’t power anywhere else around here,” John said.
“Well, isn’t much to it. As long as the wind blows, which it always does, and the turbines keep working and charging the batteries, I’ll have my security system and my heat. What I should have invested in was a shortwave radio. Kilbuck Elementary had one a while back, but of course someone torched that place, like most everything else.”
John pointed to the AM/FM radio sitting on the counter. “You pick up anything with that?”
Red reached over to the radio and flipped it on. He hit the scan button and turned the volume up. From the bed, John could see the digital numbers scrolling through the AM stations. Nothing but static.
“For the first few months I did this every night. Scanned all the frequencies. Back before all this flu shit, on clear nights we could get stations from Russia, Korea—hell, all over. Now there’s nothing. But watch this. Watch how it hits some numbers and pauses—like there is a signal there. See that, 650? That’s KENI, an Anchorage station. It pauses for a split second and goes on. But when it passes over 640, the local station, nothing. I don’t know what it means. Might just be crazy me thinking it’s something, but hearing about this hunter character only makes me wonder that much more. No one would be out skiing. Why would they send one guy? Makes no sense.”
He turned the radio off, flipped off the light, and settled into his cot. Then he said, “We both know that KYUK quit broadcasting when the power went out. To me it’s like there are stations out there, but we can’t get them. My guess is they’re being scrambled.”
Rayna sat up and turned to Red. “Why would they want to keep us from getting radio?” she asked.
“I don’t know if that’s what they’re doing, honey, but could be that this whole region is under a complete communication shadow. Nothing in or out. A no-fly zone to boot. I’m sure you’ve also noticed the lack of contrails from commercial jets, John? This whole frozen countryside is no-man’s land.”
“I don’t buy it, Red. How do you answer for all of the friends and family and relatives outside who would want to know what’s going on?”
Red coughed and turned his back on them. “I’m just telling you what I think,” he said. “Believe what you want. Whatever helps you get through the day, buddy. But I’ll tell you this: no one listened to those friends and families when they talked about conditions here before the outbreak. There are populations in this world who are the expendable people in the eyes of all governments. I know none of this for sure, but then again, don’t really matter much if I’m wrong now, does it?”
John rested on his back with his eyes open and staring at the white insulated ceiling. The girl reached beneath the covers for his hand. She grabbed hold of it, turned toward him, and pressed it to her chest. She held his hand there and squeezed.
“Do you think he’s right?” she whisper
ed.
“I hope not,” he answered.
“John, we have to find them before the hunter does.”
IT TOOK SIX HOURS from the time the lights blinked out until Anna and John could see their breath. They huddled beneath every blanket they had. Both of them had runny noses, and he couldn’t convince her it was just a reaction to the cold and not the actual flu.
“I’m starting to feel warm. Too warm,” she said, just barely sticking her head out from under the covers.
“You’re making yourself sick,” he said. “I’m sure the power will come back on soon enough.”
They heard the sound of a snow machine pulling up to their house. The machine stopped, the engine continued to idle, and the house shook slightly as someone ran up the steps.
John pushed the covers off and pulled on his pants.
The heavy thumping on the door caught them both off guard. The one thing he’d never heard anyone in the village do was pound on a door. Even the kids who visited would only tap lightly, if they knocked at all.
“Coming!”
A scared voice came from the other side of the door.
“John? It’s Carl. Are you guys okay?”
John opened the door, and the look of fear and worry on Carl’s face troubled him.
“What’s wrong? Come in.”
Carl, wearing only a thin sweatshirt, no hat, gloves, or snow pants, shook his head. “No, I can’t. I just wanted to know if you had any medicine. Anything? My family. They’re all sick. The clinic is closed. No one has anything.”
“We don’t have much. Just some cold medicine, I think. Hold on.”
John stuck his head into their bedroom. Anna had been listening. “We don’t have anything except that nighttime stuff. Give that to him,” she said.
In the kitchen, John opened a cupboard and pulled out the bottle of NyQuil. “Do you have some ibuprofen?”
“Don’t really have anything,” Carl said. “No one does. The store is all out of everything and closed. We don’t even have Aspirin at our house.”
John emptied half the bottle of ibuprofen and then put the pills and the bottle of cold syrup into a plastic bag.
