Jay looked up from the bag and squinted into the darkness. “I'm in the woods north of her school—there’s a little bit of snow on the ground—I see mostly pine trees, but it's hard to tell in the dark. I left the road after the gunfight…about two hours ago, I think. I hung out in the trees as long as I could, but I was getting too cold just sitting there watching the house where they took the body."
"Jesus, a body? Jay, what the hell did you get into?"
It was Jay's turn to smile. "Names remember?"
"Right. Okay…well, if you're outside and in a wooded environment, there's some things you can do. If you see any pine trees nearby, I want you to break off some low branches and stuff as many as you can inside your jacket. It'll help keep you warm. The extra pockets of air created by the pine needles will trap your body heat more efficiently than the coat by itself.”
“I’m going to put what down my shirt? Pine branches?”
“Yup. They’ll keep you warm longer. Remember to stuff some in your boots and your pants as well. I know it’ll be cold and uncomfortable at first, but it’ll warm-up quick, you'll see."
Jay finished his meager inventory and stood once more, slinging the bag over his shoulder. "Okay, I'm breaking off branches as I go. You ready to hear what I have?" He grunted. "It's not much, I'm afraid."
"Lay it on me," Mac replied.
Jay snapped off the first pine branch he saw. He shoved the scratchy needles down his jacket and inhaled. “I smell like an air freshener.”
“What’s your status, Mongoose?”
"Wow these things are prickly…okay I'm stuffing branches in my jacket now. I have the radio, I have my winter jacket, two layers of pants and shirts, my gloves, and I still have the bandages on my hands. I don't have any fresh ones or even a Band-Aid for that matter, though. They took my first aid kit I think. Inside the pack I've got…"
Jay continued to rattle off the meager litany of items he found inside the bag when he’d dumped the contents on the ground. In the dim starlight, he could tell two things: one, he didn't have a flashlight, and two, he was pretty sure he couldn't confirm what most of the items were, so he had to describe everything to Mac.
"Okay, it doesn’t sound like you have very much, but I think you've got an emergency lifeboat rations which should get you through a couple days if you just nibble at it. And a whistle and single mirror. I didn't hear you mentioned anything about matches. You have a knife or any kind of weapon?"
Jay shook his head as he snapped off another pine branch. "I have the shotgun and…five shells. Oh, I think there was a big knife strapped to the outside of the backpack, but it's gone now."
"Well, all is not lost. Inside one of the exterior pockets is a small Swiss Army knife I stuck in there. Do you still have the big knife’s sheath? I lashed it pretty good to the bag.”
Jay paused long enough to remove his pack and glare at it in the darkness. He brought the radio to his lips. “Yep, here it is. When Shelly tried to steal all my stuff, she must have pulled the knife out. Lucky she didn’t stab me…”
“Okay. On the sheath there’s a whetstone with a little ferrocerium rod glued to the side. You should be able to make a fire if you need to. But the thing that's gonna get you through this night is in that small green canister."
"You mean the one that looks designed to hold matches?"
"That's the one. Inside are caffeine pills. I pack that stuff in all my bags. I want you to take two of them. That should be enough stimulant to get you through the first couple hours. When that wears off, take three more."
"Isn’t that dangerous?" Jay asked as he stuffed another branch down his jacket. He winced as the needles scratched his neck.
"Not any more dangerous than freezing your ass off out in the middle of nowhere. Look, you might not be any good once you arrive, but if you keep taking the caffeine pills throughout the night—making sure you drink water—you'll at least be alive to see your daughter."
Buoyed by that hope, Jay trudged forward and stuffed more branches in his clothing. "I need news. Have you heard anything from the outside world?"
Jay relayed what he saw in Blooming Grove and the mass exodus of vehicles. "More than one person said something about a FEMA camp. I think that's where everybody went."
The silence on the other end of the line was telling. When Mac’s voice finally came back, Jay knew something was wrong.
"There's been several major camps set up across the country from what I can gather over the HAM network. But it's not working out too well. Most of the people were caught off guard."
The line went silent for a moment, interrupted by spitting static. Jay's heart raced and he feared he'd lost the signal. He sighed in relief when Mac’s voice came back loud and clear.
"…it's their own fault too—they sent so many alerts and messages and warnings about hurricanes and earthquakes over the years that when something big finally came along, everyone—including the media—was so desensitized they didn't take it seriously." Mac sighed, sounding older than Jay had ever imagined possible.
"I knew this day was coming, I just didn't know it would happen in my lifetime. Look, the FEMA camps are a joke. The big cities, New York, Chicago, Washington…they're all on fire. What’s left of the police have mostly joined up with elements of the National Guard—those that haven't gone home to be with their own families—they’re setting up perimeters around cities. Anyone that makes it out is taken to the camps—the problem is most people can't get out.”
“Oh, my God.”
Mac continued: "There's a guy out of New York. He’s trapped in one of the high-rises that hasn't caught on fire yet. I don't know how long he’s gonna keep broadcasting, but he's been relaying what he sees out his windows and it's not good.”
Jay was almost afraid to ask. “What’s he say?”
“There's gangs roving the streets setting fires and attacking anyone they find. When a National Guard convoy rolls through, even with Red Crosses all over the vehicles, they get mobbed."
Jay paused, ignoring the cold seeping into his bones as he stood freezing in the night. "Has it really gotten that bad?"
"I'm afraid so. This thing hit the whole world at once. The first couple days I was picking up news from overseas and some stations out of China, but now almost everybody's gone silent.”
Jay swallowed. “The whole world?”
“Only a few people out there are still broadcasting—everybody relies on gas or diesel for generators, right? They’re either saving it for emergencies or they've already ran out. It's getting real quiet out there."
Jay sighed and started forward again, "So what's the government doing? Is there any kind of official response?"
"Oh yeah, there's some automated message saying they have everything under control, that they're bringing food and supplies to people who need it—you know, all the usual blow-sunshine-up-your-ass stuff they put out.”
Jay grunted. He wouldn’t mind hearing that creepy emergency broadcast voice. Anything was better than the interminable sound of his feet crunching through snow, step after agonizing step.
“They're trying—I’ll give ‘em credit for that—but I don't know how much longer they're gonna be there to do it. If the Feds don't bring back the troops from overseas, it's liable to get ugly real quick. There's just too many people caught unprepared, too many people desperate for food, water, and medicine…I mean, my God—can you imagine what hospitals must look like right now?”
Jay frowned, clearing away thoughts of helping Monica down the halls of Bloomington Regional for her last chemo treatment. All those people, their lives dependent on the machines that pumped their blood, breathed for them, fed them…and that didn’t even take into account the people who depended on refrigerated medication.
“…must be graveyards,” Mac continued.
“This is awful,” Jay replied, his pace slowing as the gravity of the situation weighed on his soul.
"That's why you've got to reach Leah. Yo
u cannot fail in this, you understand me? If you don't make it to her in the next couple days, she might not survive. I know that's got to be hard for you to hear, but if she’s already out of food…"
The transmission ended. Jay looked at the radio and shook it. "Mac?" Static crackled in response. "Mac!"
Jay didn't know enough about atmospheric signal propagation to know if he did something or whether Mac lost power or what—either way, once again he found himself alone in the dark.
Jay opened the pill container and dry-swallowed two milky white doses. He emptied the remaining pills into a small pocket on the front of his coat, zipping it to keep them safe. He then used the container to scoop up a little snow and tucked it inside his jacket as well. After only a minute or so of walking, his body heat melted the snow, so he unscrewed the cap and drank a mouthful of water, before repeating the process. Mac warned him before they parted ways not to eat raw snow—his body would lose too much heat trying to melt the snow, causing more harm than good.
He didn't have a cup, just the pill container, so Jay continued on, step after step through the bone-numbing cold, melting one mouthful of snow at a time. When he passed a pine, he reached up and snapped off a branch with mechanical determination, then stuffed it down his jacket. Before long, he waddled forward like a puffy, drunken penguin, his arms and legs stiff.
But Mac was right—by the time Jay was ready to take the second dose of caffeine pills, he felt pretty warm. Full of energy and twitching to run, he banished the fears gnawing away at the back of his mind. Jay’s arms and legs, warmed through exercise and heat retention from the pine boughs, felt better than they had in hours.
For the first time since Impact, hope burned in Jay Cantrell's chest. He would find Leah and he would bring her home.
Or he would die trying.
CHAPTER 3
KATE WOKE WITH A start to the sound of arrhythmic hammering in her ears. Her left hand slapped the driver's window next to her, the right gripped the chef’s knife from Target. Her heart thumping wildly, the fog of fatigue lifted, and the events of the day before crashed back into her waking mind.
The sun had just crested the horizon and deep shadows had yet to relinquish their grip on the buildings nestled in the mountaintop town of Sedona, Arizona. Everything came back at her in a rush: she’d run out of gas a little after midnight and coasted to a stop just south of town on the side of a steep embankment. Her last few gallons of gas had been spent driving north from I-10 to avoid the chaos that consumed Phoenix.
Kate wiped away the remains of her nap from tired, dry eyes and tried to focus on the horizon through her grimy windshield. The acrid, black smoke engulfing Phoenix had been unreal. She couldn't even see the city skyline for all the particulate matter in the air. A huge accident, bigger than anything she’d ever seen before had shut down I-10 in both directions just outside the city. Hundreds and thousands of cars funneled back toward California or north to Sedona, clogged every road away from the doomed interstate. With little options and even less gas, Kate had joined the line of cars moving north.
Thump-thump…thump.
"What the hell is making that noise?" she groaned. Through her filthy windows, Kate spotted three abandoned cars, apparently tangled in an accident sometime before she arrived, clustered near the side of the mountain about 100 yards away. She didn’t remember seeing them there the night before, which she found both comforting and scary.
They looked like they'd been there for a while so that meant the road was not that traveled—which was a good thing because traffic meant delay or closure—but the fact she hadn’t seen them was a testament to how tired she’d become. If she hadn’t run out of gas when she did, Kate realized she might've gone right over the side of the damn mountain.
Kate closed her eyes and centered herself, willing her breathing and heart rate to slow. Thinking about what if’s and maybe’s wouldn’t get her anywhere.
Focus on the noise. Which direction is it coming from?
When she opened her eyes, Kate found the source of the sound that had jarred her back to consciousness. Up the street, she spotted movement under the rear of a yellow sedan involved in the pile up. The figure scrambled out from under the car, carrying a red gas can and a hammer.
He walked away from the accident, his head constantly moving and upon spotting her car, trotted over. He didn’t rush, but moved with easy, careless steps that suggested he thought himself alone on the mountain.
Kate lowered her seat and gripped the knife, preparing herself to fight. She listened to the sound of footsteps crunching on gravel as the stranger approached her vehicle, with a slow, cautious gate.
“Hello?” a man’s window-muffled voice called out.
The scavenger hummed as he approached the rear of her car. She heard a thump-thump against the rear quarter panel and imagined somebody rapping knuckles against a wall, looking for a stud to hang a picture.
She flung her door open, eliciting a startled cry from a man about her age. Kate’s knife flashed in the dim sunlight—she screamed and charged. He screamed in reply, his wide eyes locked on the gleaming blade in her hand. Backpedaling, he tripped over a loose rock and went down.
She slipped between the gas can and the stranger before leveling her knife at his face. "What the hell do you want? What are you doing?"
He threw both hands up and scrambled on his back to get as far away as he could. "Nothing! I'm just getting gas so I can get out of here! Don't hurt me!"
She held the knife pointed in his direction as he got up, fell down, and got up again. Kate let herself relax a little. With his thick, heavy glasses, slight paunch and ill-fitting, mismatched clothing, the man didn't look like any threat—certainly nothing like Alan. He repeated his plea that he didn't want any trouble, and when she hesitated, he sprinted off downhill.
"Wait!" she called, suddenly reluctant to let the only person to talk with slip away so easy. "I wasn’t going to…"
She lowered the knife as the man disappeared around the corner.
Just like that Kate found herself alone again. Nothing moved on the mountain except the chilly breeze that ruffled her hair. The cold air racing down from the Northern Rockies whispered it was December, and she needed to find some winter clothing—fast.
Kate sighed, tucked the knife under her belt, and looked down at her feet. The man's red plastic gasoline can looked about two-thirds full—perhaps a couple gallons of precious fuel.
She squatted next to the can and picked up the hammer and screwdriver left behind. Staring off in the direction he ran, her hands traced the well-worn tools.
"What the hell were you doing with these?"
Kate cast a glance over one shoulder to make sure the coast remained clear. She gathered her new tools and trotted across the gap to the scene of the accident up the hill. Stooping, she investigated the yellow car.
Whoever he was, the man was no thief—he'd left the contents of the sedan completely untouched. The driver left behind several suitcases and untidy piles of hastily packed things in the back seat. She squatted down beneath the bumper and looked up at the gas tank, noticing a perforated hole the diameter of the screwdriver she held in her hand.
A smile spread across Kate's face. "Thank you, whoever you are." Moving back to her car, she emptied the plastic gas can into the tank, tossed the tools and the can in the cluttered backseat, and started up the road to Sedona.
The red-tinted mountaintop town gave her hope. As Kate passed through, she saw more than a few people out and about, mostly walking, their faces holding the same look of grief and shock she’d seen everywhere else. But here, instead of the teeming masses all trying to leave like they were back in Los Angeles, no one seemed ready to leave.
To a person, everyone stopped what they were doing—whether it be digging through trash or rooting around in a looted store—to watch her car drive by. But no one rushed her vehicle, no mobs formed, no one so much as cast a dirty look in her direction. A few shouted an
d waved their arms, but she wasn’t stopping for anyone ever again. Every time someone waved, the raw skin around her wrists burned a little where she’d ripped through Alan’s duct-tape restraints.
She watched anyone who waved or yelled in the mirror until she turned a corner or a building interrupted her view. She kept careful track of everyone in her review mirrors until they fell out of sight. Kate imagined they all went right back to doing whatever the hell it was they were doing before she drove through town. No one followed her, that much was clear.
The whole situation made her skin crawl. How was it that her car was the one driving around at 8:30 in the morning on a…Kate paused—she had no idea what day it was.
“Doesn’t matter,” she muttered to herself for reassurance. “This shit is weird.”
On the other hand, she realized as she passed through the middle of the mountaintop town, maybe no one’s leaving because they don’t have to. Maybe, she hoped, the people of Sedona figured they had a better chance of survival if they sheltered in place.
Whatever their rationale, Kate was grateful—it made for a quick trip through a bottleneck in her route home. In less than half an hour, she was through town and crawling north through the mountains again.
She pulled off at a scenic overlook about thirty minutes north of Sedona and ate breakfast—Slim Jims, a couple handfuls of dry cereal, and a bottle of chilly water. She watched the road as she ate, stretched out on the hood, absorbing the warmth of the engine while reclining on the windshield.
What Kate really wanted to do was go for a long run. Running always cleared her mind—she used to run every day with her squadron in the Air Force—and if she needed anything, it was a clear mind. Kate glanced at the map from Target sitting next to her. The crumpled, stained paper told her a story she’d rather not hear.
She had a long way to go.
Kate sighed, then took another bite of jerky. Maybe two-thirds of the trip would be through desert. She was a little less than halfway through that part by her back-of-the-napkin reckoning. After the Rockies, she’d pass into New Mexico, then cross the Texas Panhandle and into Oklahoma before she reached Missouri. Once in the ‘Show Me’ state, she’d angle northeast straight for home. Her final hurdle would be the Mississippi.
Solar Storm: Season 1 [Aftermath Episodes 1-5] Page 26
