Chapter 26 - Spring
When Stan stepped onto the front porch the next morning he was pleasantly surprised. A warm wind had come in the night. The snow lay in patches, revealing glimpses of the lawn. Birds tweeted from the surrounding trees. A tinkling wind chime moved gently in the breeze.
“It’ll be a lot easier driving now.” Nick chewed on his pipe stem.
“Yes.” Stan hoisted his pack onto his shoulder. His rifle hung loosely at his side. “I won’t have to stop and shovel every few feet.”
He turned and held out his hand to shake. “Thanks, Nick. It was nice to have a warm piece of floor to sleep on.”
The old man laughed and took Stan’s hand between his. “It was nice to have company too. Ma and I were kind of getting on each other’s nerves. Especially since I don’t even have old Bessie to talk to.”
“I’ll stop if I come back this way,” Stan assured his host, before striding towards his truck.
“You do that,” Nick muttered, before turning and re-entering the house. He hadn’t been lying. It was nice to have company. He just wished Stan could tell him more about when this blackout would end.
The truck started on the first turn of the key and Stan breathed a sigh of relief. It was a long walk home if he broke down. He kept to a steady thirty kilometres an hour which was easier now that the snow had melted almost down to the pavement. He stopped at every gate, or indication of a driveway, peering at the houses for signs of life. If the yards didn’t show any footprints he passed them by. If the house looked inhabited, he made the trek down to the house, rifle always at the ready.
He thought it must be close to noon when he pushed through the back door of a tidy white farmhouse. The kitchen floor showed muddy footprints crisscrossing it and there was a faint odour of woodsmoke in the air.
He called out, but there was no answer. Tentatively he peered into what looked like a family room. The ashes in the fireplace were cold. A bucket half full of water stood just inside the front door. Ice floated on the top.
Stan pulled his coat closer around him. The spring-like warmth from outside had not seeped into the house. The thought came to him that it felt like a tomb in here.
Gripping his rifle, he made his way along a dim hallway. He could see beds through half-open doors. They were all empty. One door, at the end of the hall, was closed tight. He turned the doorknob and pushed it open with his boot.
Across the room, a king-sized bed held the home’s family. A woman’s gaunt face rested on the pillow. Her arms were wrapped tightly around a baby and two small children were cuddled next to her. All of them were covered with a flowered quilt. The unmistakable smell of death filled the room.
Stan gagged and stepped back into the hall.
He stood for a moment, his chest heaving. It was apparent that the woman had simply taken her kids into bed with her and waited for them all to die. He wondered how long they had struggled and where the man of the house was. He remembered the cars he had passed in the last few days, sitting in the ditches or smashed together, the drivers trapped inside. Was one of them the husband and father who should have been at home with his family? And if he had been here, would he have been able to keep them alive?
Stan hurried out of the house, overwhelmed with sadness for this family and all the other families who would not be surviving this blackout. He hoped whatever had caused it was not deliberate or man-made. The idea that anybody would conceive of such an idea, let alone bring it to fruition, was too horrible to contemplate.
Back in the truck, he stepped on the gas, wanting to leave the family behind him as fast as possible. He had seen a lot of bodies lately, including that of his friend Ralph, but these children and their mother broke his heart.
Stan spent that night on the floor of the van. Outside, coyotes howled and the wind rocked the vehicle. He tucked a bottle of water next to his body so it wouldn’t freeze.
In the morning he poured the rest of the gas into the tank. He had enough to get home now. Another couple of inches of snow had fallen during the night and the road ahead was again covered. He had been driving steadily higher into the mountains and there was more snow in the ditches. The food he had started out with was gone, so he settled for a swallow of water for breakfast.
He had driven only a few kilometres when he came to an intersection. After a moment’s hesitation, he turned on to the secondary road and plunged deeper into the forest. It soon became apparent that he had made the wrong decision. The snow was deeper and it was hard to see where the road lay. Unfortunately turning around was going to be a problem too. The gas gauge flickered and he watched it anxiously.
Finally, he came to a gate. He stopped the truck and jumped out to stretch his legs. He could see a house huddled in the trees its back yard pressed against the mountain. No smoke came from its chimney and the snow around it was unbroken.
Stan considered going in. The thought of finding another scene like the last one made the decision for him. Carefully, he backed up to the gate and with a spurt of snow, returned the way he had come. It was time to go home. Empty-handed again.
Back on the highway, he turned east. The wind had started to blow and clouds of snow hindered his view. He was barely moving when he passed a road sign indicating another secondary road. He checked the fuel gauge. Still over half a tank and home was only a few kilometres away. He thought of coming home and telling Miriam and Danny he had failed yet again.
He turned the wheel to the left, determined to leave no stone unturned. Five torturous kilometres later, he saw a trail leading through an open gate. It appeared to be well used. He turned into the muddy lane. The truck bumped to a halt in front of a pile of split wood. A bearded man gaped at him, the axe he held falling to the ground.
An old man peered through the front window, his eyes wide with disbelief. He disappeared from view. The door of the truck was pulled open by another man, no, a woman, dressed in a plaid lumberjack shirt and heavy snow pants. Two boys came running from around the house, dragging a smaller boy with them.
Stan was nearly pulled from the truck. Hands reached for him, shaking his hands and patting his shoulders. Friendly faces grinned at him. An older couple burst through the front door. They pushed themselves through the welcoming party, grabbing his hands.
Voices swirled around Stan. “Where did you come from? Is the power on? How can this truck be running? Do you have food?”
Laughing, Stan finally held his hands up in surrender. Within a minute he was led into the house, being hugged and questioned by a sea of unfamiliar faces.
Chapter 27 – Hope Lost
Miriam’s eyes popped open as the remnants of her dream drifted away. The sound of her daughter calling her was so clear, it was like she was in the next room.
She shifted on the mattress, automatically reaching out for Stan’s comforting bulk beside her. She blinked into the darkness, remembering that he was not there either. On the other side of her, Danny snored softly. There was a thump as a piece of wood shifted in the stove. Outside, the wind howled, making the windows shake.
Miriam pulled the quilt tighter around her shoulders and squeezed her eyes shut. It was still a few hours until morning and she hoped to go back to sleep. She prayed that Stan would be back today. He had been gone for a week, and the house felt cold and empty without him.
The sound of wood being dropped into the heater woke her. The room was dim and outside, snow pummeled the windows.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m awake.”
“Do you think Dad will be home today?” her son asked.
“I would think so.” Miriam shook the blankets loose and stood up. She slipped her feet into her woollen socks before stepping off the mattress. As soon as she stepped away from the stove the air turned frigid. She dipped a few cups of water into the kettle. Setting it on the top of the heater she tried to smile reassuringly. “He’ll run out of gas soon, so he’ll have to come back.”
“Unless he can find ga
s on the road.” Danny pointed out. “He took the pump with him.”
“All we can do is wait.” Miriam gave her son a quick hug. To her surprise, he clung to her, his forehead resting on the top of her head, his arms wrapped around her shoulders. She hugged him back. “Don’t worry,” she said. “he’ll be back soon.”
“I’m not worried.” Danny stepped back, his face shining pink. “I miss him, that's all. Now that I’ve delivered all the wood and we’ve cleared the streets, I need him to tell me what’s next.”
Miriam smiled up at him. “Now those are words I wouldn’t have expected. You want more jobs?” she gave him a playful poke in the chest. “Don’t worry, I can help you with that.”
Half an hour later, Danny left the house, carrying a bowl of deer stew for Amanda. Miriam felt sure that the officer would have some errands for her boy. He was thirteen next week and she was trying to think of a surprise for him. In the past year, he had grown from a little boy to a responsible young man and she wanted to show him how proud they were of him. She wished Stan was here to give her some ideas.
Miriam was thinking of what she could use to spice up today’s stew when she heard the back door open. With a glad cry, she flew towards her husband. He opened his arms and they clung together. Finally, she stepped back, wiping her eyes. Stan lowered his head, but not before she saw the tears dripping down his cheeks.
He held up his hand before she could say anything, but his expression told her all she needed to know. She flung herself against his shoulder, heedless of the snowflakes clinging to his coat and beard.
For a moment they stood in the doorway, sobs shaking their bodies. Finally gaining control, Miriam stepped back and helped him pull his coat off. He kicked his boots off and left them lying by the door.
“Is she dead?” Miriam asked, her voice shaking. They had settled at the kitchen table, cups of hot water steaming in front of them.
Stan shook his head. “I don’t know. But Will Thompson is, and so are the boys who ran away with him.”
“But not Tara?”
“She wasn’t with them.” Stan looked at her hopelessly. “Another boy heard a rumour about a dead girl, but she wasn’t with the rest of them.”
Miriam reached across the table and grabbed her husband’s hand. For a moment she reflected on how his soft, insurance agent’s hands had become hardened over the winter.
“Let's wait for Danny.” He said gently. “I can’t tell it twice.”
“Tell what?” Their son’s voice broke in. “Did you find her?”
“Sit down, Son.” Stan waited until Danny hung his coat over the back of the chair and sat across from him. “I stopped at a lot of farms and houses,” he started. “Some of them were friendly and some were not. Nobody had seen her. I had decided to come home because my gas supply was running out, but made one more stop about fifteen kilometres from here. It was quite a group. An old couple, their son, a couple of neighbours and some lost boys who had wandered in.” He smiled. “They were pretty to see me and my van. They told me that a bunch of boys had broken into their root cellar and stolen all their food around Christmas time.” He paused and took a sip of his water.
“One of their neighbour’s kids had been involved, and he told them that he had seen a girl there, but she had disappeared. When they went to investigate, they were attacked. In the fight, the ringleader was killed. They were really broken up about it. The woman, Monica, is a teacher and she only wanted to help them. Anyway, after that, the other boys all scattered so they just left them there. When I told them I was looking for my daughter, we decided to go and see if the boys were still there, but when we got there, they were all dead, lying around, wrapped in blankets, apparently starved or frozen to death.” Stan wiped his eyes. “It was terrible, and poor Monica was devastated. She thought they would have all gone home after their leader died. It wasn’t that far.”
Miriam took a shaky breath. “Did you know them?”
“I knew Will Thompson. And I recognized the shirt they had used trying to stop his bleeding. It was Tara’s.”
“Poor kids.” Miriam wiped her eyes. “Why didn’t they go home? Or look for help?”
“That’s what Monica said. At the time, all I could think of was that they had taken our daughter and I couldn’t even ask them why.” Stan reached for his wife’s hand. “Maybe she got away.”
“Or maybe she didn’t.” Danny pushed the chair back. It teetered and fell with a bang.
When neither parent spoke, he grabbed his coat. “I’m going back to the police station.”
“Do you want something to eat first?” Miriam’s motherly instincts rose to the surface. One child was gone, but she still had a responsibility to this one. His prolonged hug this morning was a sign that he had been pushed aside for too long.
The slamming door was her only answer and she stared numbly at it. Finally, she turned her head and looked at Stan. Tears had left their tracks on his cheeks, running into his beard.
“You look tired.” Miriam stood up. “Why don’t you have a nap? I’m going to see if I can help Amanda with anything.”
Grabbing her coat, she followed Danny into the falling snow. Stan stared after her, then slowly made his way to the mattress on the floor. He would have a rest, and then, he would start planning his next trip. If she had run, she might still be out there and he would find her.
Chapter 28 - Renewal
The snow melted away as it did every spring. Crocuses poked their heads through the wet soil. Miriam’s garden patch expanded as she dug new furrows in the lawn. At the police station, Amanda had a new command. Three of her former co-workers slunk back into the station, apologizing for their desertion. She readily accepted them back, knowing they had been concerned about their own families.
She was sorting papers, going through the list of the deceased when the phone in the front office rang. She stared at it in disbelief, then reached for the receiver as carefully as if it had been a rattlesnake.
“This is Deputy Commissioner Singh.” A rough voice came through the line. “Connect me with Superintendent Doyle.”
For a moment Amanda couldn’t speak. She swallowed hard and explained about Ralph’s death.
There was silence, then Singh cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to hear that, Ma’am. Who am I speaking to?”
“This is Constable Amanda Smith. We have four officers here now, however, three have only just returned to duty.” She stood up and almost saluted the phone. “What can you tell me, Sir? Do we have any explanations about the blackout? Do we know some phones are working and some cars are running, but not all?”
The voice at the other end of the line softened. “We don’t know,” he said. “It appears that anything depending on a computer or a satellite will stay out of commission for a long while.”
“Do we know what happened?” Amanda sat down, shaking from shock. “People died. The ones who are left are expecting explanations. What should I tell them?”
“Tell them,” the man cleared his throat. “Tell them it was a mistake. The Americans were shooting some kind of laser into the sky to measure the ionosphere and it went awry.
“A mistake!” Amanda laughed shortly. “A mistake! That’s it?”
“I told some guy this a week or so ago,” the man said. “I thought you knew.”
“We’re busy here. Nobody told me they had talked to you. I didn’t even know the phone worked.”
The man cleared his throat again. “For what it's worth,” he said, “the American government apologized.”
Amanda slammed the receiver down. Tears filled her eyes. Grabbing her coat, she stalked towards the Morrisson house.
Stan and Miriam didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Finally, they decided to laugh, glad that they finally had an explanation for their long cold winter. Miriam leaped to the phone, glad that they had resisted the trend to use cell phones only. Her first call was to the Baldini farm, thanking them for their help tracking down Tara’s a
bductors.
Somehow having a means of communication made their circumstances seem less dire. With the longer days, the need for candles lessened. They moved their beds back upstairs and returned the kitchen to its original purpose. The wood stove remained in its spot. In the mornings they bundled themselves into robes and slippers and hurried down to the warm kitchen.
“I just wish I could find more seeds.” Miriam warmed her hands around a cup of boiled water. With the snow gone, they were back to hauling barrels of water from the creek. Notices had gone up around town, reminding everybody to boil the water before drinking it.
“Me too,” Stan said glumly. “Even if the power comes back on, it will be a long time before we get food shipped in.”
His wife laughed shortly. “Where will we get it shipped from? It seems like most, if not all of North America is in the same boat. We need to look after ourselves.” She stood up and looked out the window at her garden patch. “I had a couple of packets of lettuce, but they won’t last long. Maybe I need to go foraging in the empty houses again.”
“You and everybody else.” Stan reached for her hand. “Maybe I can drive out to some of the farms and see what they have.”
She sighed, ignoring his hand. Somehow she didn’t feel like holding hands. He thought he was comforting her, but she felt like he was the one asking for comfort. Comfort she couldn’t give. Her heart felt heavy in her chest and tears lurked, ready to spill at the slightest provocation. She worked through the days, trying to put on a brave face, but if she let herself weaken for a moment, even by touching her husband, she would fall apart. At night she turned her face to the wall. She heard him sigh before he patted her shoulder or stroked her face. Finally, he would turn away and sometimes she heard his sobs for a long time.
“Let's not use up the gas looking for seeds.” She finally answered. “I’ll do some more searching first. It’s only May, so we have time.”
The Incident | Book 3 | Winter of Darkness Page 12
