Agnes brought each of us a small bowl of stew. I stood to take it from her and thanked her. It smelled perfect. Lucas thanked her as well. I noted that Randy took it without acknowledging Agnes’ existence. She didn’t seem to notice. We ate small bites; it was hot.
“You’ve seen Bob. He hasn’t been the same since he saw his girlfriend eaten by a bear. That happened right in front of him. I don’t know how he got away. He got a nasty scar out of it. I’d ask him to show you, but when he’s calm, we leave him be.”
“The Russians. They pulled out six months ago, didn’t they?” I asked.
“Most of them left long before that, maybe three years, but they’d still harass us. The soldiers would show up, conduct a sweep, and then disappear again. It was often enough that we never felt safe. But six months ago it all stopped. We haven’t seen any sign of them since. Hell, we only moved in here a month ago when we realized they weren’t coming back.”
He looked finished, so I told him what I knew, our survival, our run through the winter to get to Canada, and then our return. We talked about the charter, the mandate to settle Alaska once again, establish a new legitimacy where the UN would recognize who owned the state. We wanted it to be us.
Randy and Agnes were excited. They were lifelong Alaskans and didn’t want to leave.
“You don’t have to. Establish a settlement. Get yourselves set for the coming winter, and I think next year will be a big year to consolidate and start building again. I believe that within a couple years, you’ll see the return of commerce, trade, everything that makes for a civilization. The infrastructure is still mostly in place except for the big cities and military bases; those were all nuked or bombed in some way. But we can build around that. I didn’t like Anchorage anyway,” I said to see if he was listening. He gave me a closed-mouth smile. Maybe he lost family in Anchorage.
“I’m sorry. A lot of people died down there. I didn’t mean to make light of that. Or Fairbanks, or Delta Junction. A lot of people died. The government heard from a few of the native villages, because of satellite phones. I’d like to think that most, if not all, are okay. So what’s that leave us, twenty to thirty thousand people still here? Everything else was turned into a resettlement camp until it was evacuated, like Valdez, Bethel, Nome, Homer. I still can’t believe the magnitude of it all,” I stopped. I had thought about it, but here they were in front of me. Three people. No one was in Nenana. I wondered how many people were still in Circle?
“It’s okay, Chuck. I like what you said. We’re going to rebuild. Maybe I can be the Mayor of Healy? Ha! What do you think of that, Agnes?” Chortling, he slapped the table. Agnes smiled and returned to her needlework.
“Let us clean that up for you, Agnes. It’s the least we can do to show our appreciation for your hospitality.” We picked up all the bowls and headed for the door to what we suspected was the kitchen. Agnes brightened immensely. Randy looked angry. I ignored him as Agnes followed us into the kitchen carrying a kettle that had been on the stove. A jug of clean-looking water sat on the sink. We mixed the two and did the dishes for her. It took us less than ten minutes start to finish.
When we returned, Randy was standing with his hands on his hips. “You’re going to ruin it!” he spit out.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, surprised, but not at his demeanor. This young man had put himself in charge. He was probably part of the reason Bob was still a basket case.
“We have a good thing here and you’re ruining it. Agnes takes care of everything for us, and that’s how we like it.” He finished by thrusting out his chest and standing close so he could loom over me. My expression didn’t change as he put his hands on my shoulders, but Lucas snickered. When Randy looked at him, I kneed the younger, larger man in the groin as hard as I could. He came off the ground and crashed through a chair on his way to the floor.
“Agnes! Grab your stuff if you want to go with us,” Lucas told her. She shuffled away, returning after two minutes with one bag.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Yes, dear, I don’t need much,” she smiled as she tottered out the door. Lucas followed her to the truck. I stayed behind.
I pulled out my pistol and made a show of racking the slide, which was just a show. There was already a round in the chamber, so I only went part of the way to avoid ejecting one of my precious rounds.
I kneeled sideways beside him to limit his target had he chosen to lash out. He wisely whimpered and held himself. I forced the barrel between his lips. “If I ever see you do anything like that again, I will kill you,” I hissed at him. “Here’s what you’re going to do. You will clean this place up and prepare it to receive visitors. You’re going to figure out how to get running water back in here. And you are going to build yourself a smoker so you can stock some meat and other supplies. Do you understand me?”
He nodded slightly. I stood and slowly backed away, keeping my pistol aimed at his head. His eyes were slits as he glared at me. I mouthed the word “boom” at him and backed out the door. I jogged to the truck, grabbing the rusty rifle on my way past.
“Does he have a gun, Agnes, or a vehicle?”
“That’s the only one. I told them to take better care of it. And that truck over there is running, but just barely.” She pointed to a newer truck. The old gas probably didn’t agree with the fuel injection system.
“You want to grab that and we can drop it a few miles down the road?” I nodded toward Lucas. He hopped out and ran to it. It fired up, but coughed and smoked. I let him lead the way in case the truck broke down. We both spun our tires as we sped from the parking lot.
“How about that, Agnes? A real jailbreak!”
She laughed as she cranked the window down on her side of the truck, letting the wind pull her hair behind her.
“Where did the others go, Agnes? I need to find this woman Tanya if she’s out there somewhere. Can you point the way?” I pleaded with her. I expected there was a great deal she knew but hadn’t shared with Randy.
“Keep going this way and then there’s a Jeep track. I think we’ll be able to take it, even if it’s overgrown a little. We’ll need to drive it all the way to the end which is well inside the park. There are cabins out that way with people staying there,” she said slowly.
“Don’t be afraid, Agnes. I think you’ll like our group and we’ll be happy to have you. We have all types and we have one type. The one thing we insist is that everyone works to make the Community better. After that, you do your own thing. We have a number of children, from a few months old to our six-year-old twins.”
She bobbed her head in rhythm with the bouncing truck. I waved my arm out the window at Lucas, and he pulled to the side. “There might be some survivors in the hills, but we’ll have to take an overgrown Jeep path. You up for that?” I asked.
Of course, he was. He told me to lead the way and then pull aside when we were at the turn-off. He had no problem abusing the truck we’d just stolen.
When we reached the so-called road, I waved Lucas ahead. Even he stopped and looked sideways at it. Overgrown didn’t begin to cover it. I thought we were looking at the entrance to Jurassic Park. Agnes nodded and pointed. The truck protested as Lucas engaged the four-wheel drive and powered into the brush.
THE COST OF POWER
The engineers and Chris and Colleen took two of the quads in search of the elusive right-sized generator. They knew the most likely candidates would be found at the Air Force Base. Chris had been there before and led the way. The quads raced down the highway. Sometimes it was nice to feel the speed of the machine, but only on the straightaways. No one wanted to deal with another rollover, least of all the engineers.
They pulled past the abandoned guard shack and through the open gate. The engineers asked if Chris knew where the buildings were that might need auxiliary power in case of an outage, places like a hospital, cl
inic, or headquarters. Chris shrugged. The base wasn’t that big. They split it into two pieces, the hangars and everything else.
Chris and Colleen drove to the flight line. The planes were arrayed across the tarmac as if waiting for the crew to show up and fly them away.
There were hangars and other support facilities that lined the parking apron. At the end of the runway, a second taxiway led to an area where fighter jets could be parked along with infrastructure suited for the smaller planes.
They took a businesslike approach and started with the first hangar, a massive structure where the biggest airplanes could be serviced. The building-sized doors were closed, but the normal door built into the larger retracting walls was unlocked. They went through and into the musty darkness.
Chris had to return to the quad and get their flashlights. In the beams of their lights they saw equipment lining the walls, leaving the central area open. Colleen went one way and Chris went the other. They didn’t know what most of the equipment did and the going was slow as they checked tags, looking for a label telling them more about the equipment. Halfway down one wall, Colleen yelled for Chris.
“I know what I’m looking for but I don’t know what I’m looking at. Can you make heads or tails of these tags! What is this stuff and what does it do?” Exasperated, she leaned against a small tractor used to move aircraft around. Chris laughed.
“Thank God! I thought it was just me. I bet there’s something here they can use. Let’s go find our young adventurers and tell them about this place. We can check out other things, see what we can use. I think we might need to make a major ‘shopping’ run here.” They held hands as they walked out of the building. Driving slowly, they listened for the other quad until they caught sight of the engineers.
After a brief update, the two excited young men headed straight for the large hangar. Chris and Colleen went to the exchange to pick up cans of spray paint so they could tag places they wanted to come back to. And then they started the unsavory task of going through people’s homes, looking for canned goods. They collected enough to fill the trailer, then consolidated more into a few houses where they spray painted fluorescent lines on the doors. They were happy that they didn’t find any bodies, but also surprised. They wondered where the people had gone.
They finished with as much personal housing as they could stomach before exploring from the quad. There was a tank farm at the far end of the base. Chris thought about climbing an outside ladder on one of the tanks, but Colleen stopped him by pointing to a small building to where all the pipes led.
The manifold building controlled the distribution of the fluids. Chris wanted to know what flowed through there. Inside, he was rewarded to find the pipes were clearly labeled. Jet fuel in six of the tanks and diesel in the last one. They didn’t know how much was in each tank, but Chris thought he could rig a rope with an anchor and conduct manual measurements. Five more tanks were across the road with piping leading to a second manifold building and pumping station.
Before they did anything else, they wanted to talk with the engineers and devise a plan to go after the right resources in the right way.
They drove onto the taxiway and followed it to where the engineers’ quad was parked. They stopped and yelled. They tried the first hangar, but no one was there. Then the second, and then a smaller third one. They were nowhere to be found.
Chris went one direction and Colleen the other, both calling for Cullen and Shane. They looped around the buildings and met back at the quad nearly an hour later. There was still no sign of the engineers.
“What do we do now?” Chris asked, torn between being angry and concerned.
“We have to find them. When did we last see them?” Colleen’s eyes pleaded with Chris. She was concerned and afraid.
“A couple hours, maybe? And that’s before spending the last hour looking. You go where I went, and I’ll retrace your steps. Maybe you’ll see something that I missed. Did they get into something they shouldn’t have?” They ran in opposite directions, quickly disappearing into the hangars.
It only took ten minutes before Chris heard Colleen screaming for him. He broke into a sprint and nearly ran Colleen over as they reached the hangar door at the same time.
“I found them, but can’t get to them!” she said as she took off at a dead run. Chris easily kept pace while preparing himself for the worst. They ran to the hangar that they’d first gone into, the one he’d gone through by himself an hour ago. Colleen ran across the open floor to a misshapen mountain of supplies and equipment in the back covered by a large canvas tarp. Some careless individual had covered certain chemicals and supplies that shouldn’t have been in the hangar to begin with. One corner of the tarp was pulled up.
He hadn’t thought to look under there. He started mentally kicking himself. Colleen waved him to the other side and she grabbed a handful of tarp. He mirrored her action. Together they rolled it back, the smell of an industrial chemical attacked his sinuses, burning with each breath. He almost lost his grip, but turned his head away and exhaled sharply before gulping a breath of fresher air to the side. They kept rolling the tarp back until the two young men were lying in the open.
Colleen took a couple steps toward them, then coughed and retreated, holding her shirt over her mouth.
Chris pointed her away from the area, toward the open floor. He leaned to the side and took a deep breath. He ran to Cullen, grasped under his arms, and dragged him backwards out of the area. Chris’ chest heaved with the effort to take his first breath once in the open.
He panted and then took in another big breath before going after Shane. When he dropped Shane next to Cullen, he watched as Colleen performed CPR, which made him check Shane’s pulse. He had one, but was blue and barely breathing.
Chris thought he remembered seeing an oxy-acetylene welding rig. He shone his flashlight along the walls until he found it, and he ran for it. It was on a cart which made pushing it back easy. He unhooked the oxygen line and secured it on the top of the tank, turning the valve to let the oxygen flow, but not at full pressure. He took off his shirt and made a tent over Shane’s face, blowing the oxygen into the small area.
Colleen continued performing CPR, but she was getting tired. Chris took over so she could examine Shane. Her skills were needed more on the living than the dead. When Chris gave Cullen a breath, he knew. The young man’s face was cold.
He’d been dead for a while. Chris stopped what he was doing and carefully lifted the man by his armpits and dragged him toward the door. He walked back to Colleen, feeling tired and very old.
THE SURVIVORS
Lucas revved the engine on occasion to keep it running while delivering extra power as he drove through dense bushes and over small trees. He backed up every now and then to get a run at the foliage that failed to give way under the slow approach. He could see enough to stay on the track and was happy when they finally broke into an open valley. He followed the old track across the valley as his engine temperature rose. He figured he’d punched a hole in the radiator, but didn’t care as long as he could plow the way for me in our other truck.
We didn’t want our ride home to take the beating he was delivering to the stolen truck. And Lucas enjoyed every minute of it. We could hear him whooping and hollering with each new victory over nature. Agnes and I marveled at how his whole body bounced into the air as he negotiated ruts and small sinkholes.
When the heat gauge redlined and the engine started sputtering, Lucas surged to a small open spot to the side and let the truck die. He jumped out, then used the classic hitchhiking pose to wave us down.
“Going my way, mister?” Lucas waved to Agnes as he drawled his question.
“Why don’t you walk ahead and scout the best route. We can’t afford to lose this truck, too.” I was all business. I wanted to know if Tanya lived here, and then I wanted to go home.
Ag
nes and I crawled after Lucas, but it made the drive much easier on us and the truck. The truck cleared the brush, and a stand of trees spread apart before we entered an open meadow around which a number of cabins stood. I stopped the truck, but before I could get out, the windshield shattered as a bullet tore through it, whizzing past my head and out the back window. I ducked to the right as Agnes dodged to her left and our heads cracked together like two melons hitting the floor. Agnes grunted and I shoved her underneath me as I used my body to protect her as a second shot sent the remaining glass over us.
Lucas yelled at someone to stop firing while he scrambled to get behind a tree. He was unarmed and couldn’t shoot back. I had my pistol and both rifles in the front seat with me, but was hesitant to expose myself outside the truck. Then again, if they shot the engine, we’d be trapped up here. I put it in reverse and backed away, fast, weaving as I did so. A shot missed the truck and then another as I drove backward erratically toward the path down the hill.
Lucas was yelling at me to wait, but there was no stopping, I could barely see and my foot was jammed sideways against the brake pedal. Until I could sit up straight, the truck would continue downhill. I sat up just before we missed our path through the woods, yanking violently on the steering wheel while mashing the brakes.
The truck slid sideways, stopped, then eased backward down the trail and into the brush. I stopped out of sight of the cabins. Agnes sat up and brushed the glass from her hair.
“I’m sorry. I probably should have told you they are kind of wary of strangers,” Agnes apologized. She opened her door
“Where are you going?”
Return (End Times Alaska Book 3) Page 12
