by Eric Keller
He generally ignored the boy and busied himself sorting and storing the supplies until Luke climbed into the pile of blankets in the bathroom where he could be heard weeping for some time before going silent. Once certain his guest was fast asleep, Hale carefully dug himself a hole in the nest and tried to sleep himself.
Now, with a hint of daylight coming into the bathroom turned bedroom, Hale could hear the sounds of Luke moving around the frozen apartment, talking to the grey cat. He could not ignore the kid forever. A plan. They needed some sort of plan. Things to do.
The fuller cabinets and pile of burnable fuel provided a respite, but the lack of other inhabited apartments was disconcerting as it limited their total store of supplies. Sadly, he knew at least one other apartment existed. Certainly, Asiz never made it back from his doomed attempt to rescue his wife. If there were survivors in the building or nearby, either friendly or unfriendly, it would be wise for Hale to secure Asiz’s abandoned supplies before anyone else could. He reluctantly climbed out of the fleeting warmth of the blankets.
Luke stood on the balcony, staring numbly as the sun rose to reveal the devastation through the blowing whiteness of snow. Luke’s family’s apartment looked out the back of the building, towards the wilderness so this was the first time the kid could survey the burned rubble now comprising the once vibrant outpost. Hard to tell given all the clothes he wore but Hale thought Luke’s shoulders were shaking.
Some instinct buried in his psyche indicated that he should move to console the child. At the least put a hand on his shoulder and say something reassuring. Instead, he stepped next to him and asked, “How long have you lived in the building?”
Startled, Luke turned away from the grey destruction. Tears were freezing on his red cheeks. He rubbed at his face as he said, “Huh?”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Maybe a few weeks.”
“How many other people in the building?”
“Huh?”
Frustration was already growing inside Hale, patience not a virtue of his. “Do you know if anyone else lives here?”
“I think a couple other apartments have people in them.”
Obviously, the kid would not be much help from an intelligence standpoint. Regardless, he needed to get whatever few supplies he could. He began to order Luke to stay in the apartment and work on melting ice for drinking water while he went out scavenging when movement down below caught his attention. At first, they were only shadows on the rocks, the vague idea of a presence seen through blowing snow but, before long, Hale’s sharp eye discerned figures, a dozen people.
The group appeared exhausted, meandering and stumbling with no appearance of order. Even though they were carrying military firearms, the black metal clear against their white coats, Hale doubted they were a normal army patrol.
They came near but before they reached the building, the man out front stopped, and all the others came to a staggered halt behind him. For a long moment, the leader stared up at the structure as if appraising it for some purpose. It was impossible to make out any features of the man bundled in winter gear but, when Hale sensed the man’s eyes light on the balcony, he instinctively hurried inside, pulling Luke back with him.
Standing in the living room, the orphan staring at him confused, Hale silently pleaded that the group would carry on rather than enter his pathetic sanctuary. He counted to fifty in his head before carefully stepping back to the window. To his relief, the band was wandering off to the East, apparently seeking better looting or sheltering options.
“Who were they? Soldiers?” Luke asked as they watched them disappear.
“I don’t think so. Maybe they once were, but now I’d guess they’re more like a gang or something.”
“They looked freezing and tired. Shouldn’t we help them?”
Hale answered, “No.”
“Bad guys?”
Turning away from the window, Hale said, “Not sure.”
Picking up his pointy stick, the flashlight, the hammer, and the duffel bag, Hale turned back to explain that he was going to look for supplies, deciding he now needed to act quickly. However, the look of worry covering the boy’s face made him hesitate. Luke would probably be safer in the apartment but leaving him alone with the vision of evil marauders circling the building seemed cruel.
“I’m going to look for more supplies. Grab a bag, you can come with me, but you have to stay quiet and listen to what I say.”
. . .
“You think this is smart? Having Sam stay here?” Paul asked in a whisper so as not to wake the children.
Morreign had not slept well despite her bone-deep fatigue. She knew her voice would sound annoyed if she answered right away, so she took a drink of weak tea to buy herself some time. They were sitting at the kitchen table, watching out the tiny, dirty window as Sam’s unnamed dog, belly deep in snow, crept along the edge of the trees lining the clearing, apparently stalking unseen prey.
After dinner last night, Sam showed them the cozy room he set up around an old wood stove off of the kitchen in the lodge. The tight, insular space could be kept warm with only minimal firewood. The visitor and his dog spent the night there while the others returned to their frigid cabins.
Morreign loved Paul deeply and cherished Leo and Ainsley, they were smart, well educated, kind people with common sense and drive but they were urbanites through and through. The skills and charisma they developed over lifetimes existing amongst others were extremely valuable in the world before, but now those attributes were useless, perhaps worse than useless. Now having knowledge of nature trumped understanding algebra and cold-hearted toughness mattered more than having a proper handshake.
Realizing this truism was one thing, being able to speak of it with her husband of ten years another thing altogether. She put down her cup and decided to hedge. “I don’t know, but I think so. He knows things we don’t, things we need to know about.”
“Sure. I suppose. But he seems, I don’t know, dangerous to me.”
Morreign wanted to point out that he was right and it was exactly that dangerousness they now needed. While she pondered how to carefully put this into words without hurting Paul’s feelings, Sam’s dog suddenly exploded forward, spraying snow in every direction. Out of the spray sprinted a startled hare, its feet barely touching the ground as it skittered across the deep snow for a dozen feet before it seemed to be violently thrown sideways. A gunshot echoed across the clearing. Spinning her gaze towards the sound, she saw Sam kneeling in the trees, his rifle smoking.
The kids, scared awake by the bang, were crying from their bed as Rufus yapped. Paul hurried to comfort the boys, saying to her as he went, “I didn’t even think there were rabbits around here, least not in the winter.”
Morreign continued to look outside, shaking her head in disbelief at the sight she witnessed, and said, “The dog must’ve found a warren or a lair or whatever. Seems like we’ll have some fresh meat at least.”
Paul shook his head. “Suppose I should know better than to second guess your instincts by now.”
Through the hazy window, she watched as the dog picked up the rabbit corpse and bounded through the snow to Sam, dropping it at his feet. With casual grace, Sam picked up the rabbit by the ears and tossed a piece of dried meat from his pocket which the dog bolted up to catch.
Turning away from the window, Morreign saw Paul holding Huck while explaining to Jacob that Sam was practicing shooting so he should wait a while before taking Rufus outside. The thought filling her mind hurt her to her core because she loved her caring, considerate family dearly, but she now knew that, to survive, the instinctual remnants of animalistic hardness they always suppressed would need to pre
vail. The days of coddling were over.
. . .
Sharp pain fought the numbness encompassing in his feet. Harrison appreciated the pain, it meant frostbite had not won out completely. Hard to see anything through the wickedly blowing snow but he figured the squat apartment building standing before him on the outskirts of Thule was recently erected. More space than his group needed and it would make an obvious target to any marauders, but that was not why he turned away from the potential sanctuary to seek out a different shelter. Despite the blinding snow, he glimpsed movement up above, people on a balcony.
Four days ago, he and Clarence managed to hike out of the forest, leaving the crashed helicopter and the corpses to be buried by the falling snow. They eventually reached the destroyed base. Only a couple dozen people, some soldiers, some civilians, remained. They were hiding and huddled in the half-collapsed basement of the maintenance building. A dirty, injured, hungry, frozen mass, clinging to each other in the darkness.
The remaining officers were trying to maintain authority and give the desolate group some order, but Harrison could clearly see that the tenuous situation would not last. Before long, fear, cold and hunger would overrule any historical vestige of the unearned command structure. Regardless, Harrison and Clarence stayed for three days. Partly to heal up and regain some strength before venturing on but also so Harrison could survey the survivors.
When the time came, Clarence hesitated over walking away from the huddled mass in the disgusting basement but Harrison knew the abandonment to be necessary, and the pliable pilot did not argue. He picked the healthiest and strongest and convinced them to leave with him, robbing the miserable remnants of their only hope of survival. As they snuck away in the night as the old and wounded slept in the frigid filth where they would surely die, Harrison told himself that leaving behind the weakest was the only way the others could endure. Many would see this rationalization as cold comfort, but Harrison could accept cold comfort.
All night the chosen marched, following Harrison to Thule, hoping for a useable refuge. The wind chilled at a lethal level while drifted snow made it nearly impossible to walk with any speed. One of their number, a middle-aged mechanic, collapsed and could not be roused and desperation firmly set in, they needed shelter and fire immediately
Regardless, the possibility of people in the residential building worried Harrison. At some point soon he figured the building could become their prime target as it likely held food and other supplies, however, that point could not be now. If his exhausted group entered and were confronted by even a couple of unfriendly, rested people willing to fight from their raised position they could all be wiped out. Better to risk the weather a little longer and find a safe place than risk annihilation. He moved on, hoping the others would continue to follow.
Clarence, his face entirely wrapped in multiple scarves and his eyes hidden behind goggles, caught up to him, “What are you doing? We need to get inside right now, and that’s the only place with four walls and a roof we’ve seen. Hell, there might even be people in there with fires already going.”
Harrison knew Clarence would do whatever he said. The pilot apparently realized that without Harrison, they would have died in the woods, the demented Colonel barking out pointless orders all the while. He asked, “Are they following?”
“What?”
“The others, are they coming?”
Clarence glanced back. “Looks like it, I mean they’re barely able to move, but I think they’re coming.”
His hold on these desperate people was even stronger than Harrison thought if they would walk away from the shelter at this point without even saying a word in protest. This was good, a leader with no followers is merely a guy out for a walk.
He looked at Clarence and said, “I think you could be right, there’re people in that building. That’s the problem.”
“What do you mean? We’re going freeze to death because we’re shy?”
Clarence apparently did not excel at far-ranging thought. Harrison realized the tribal instinct ingrained in people to seek out help when in danger would be the downfall of many in this new world. He also realized that this ingrained flaw could be to his advantage. However, this realization would do him no good if hypothermia killed him before he could put the information to use.
He ignored Clarence’s question and forced his frozen legs to move faster through the blinding snow. If the bombing ignored the apartment building, maybe it also left a more suitable structure nearby.
After a few dozen strides, a light post appeared out of the blizzard like a beacon. A handful more steps and fuel tanks became visible. Then the arching hulk of a machine shed nearly buried in snow. Some sort of industrial service station. A place which should be empty of people but full of flammable liquids simply waiting for a match. A perfect port in the storm.
He stopped to let Clarence catch up and then, pointing at the sanctuary, leaned over to him and said, “That’s why you don’t buy the first house you see.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FEBRUARY 23, 2036
DAY FIFTEEN
Holding the gray cat on his lap, Luke jumped his red checker over two of Hale’s black ones before calmly declaring, “King me.”
With frozen fingers, Hale placed the checker as ordered before pondering is own move. Wanting a conversation, Hale asked, “Do you know why they called this place Thule?”
Luke merely nodded.
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s from Latin. Back in olden days, it meant the place furthest to the North, up past the borders of the known world.”
“Right, exactly. How’d you know that?”
As soon as the word left his lips, Hale wanted to pull it back. Luke scratched the cat’s neck and said, “My dad told me.”
Hale could think of nothing else to say and silently made his own, less impressive move. The boy quickly countered, taking a couple more pieces and easily winning their ten thousandth game. As Hale mechanically moved to reset the board, Luke let out a sigh and asked, “Why can’t we go out?”
Expecting the usual question, Hale answered, “You know why.”
“It’s not windy anymore, not that cold. We could go for a bit, maybe find something useful or fun or something.”
“The door’s blocked tight.”
“We could open it easy enough.”
“And if the men come?”
“They won’t.”
“And if they do?”
“We don’t even know they’re bad.”
Even though he was only six years old, Luke was right. They did not know if they were bad or not. Sixteen days ago, Hale rarely, if ever, thought about the human condition. Since the destruction, he found himself, with too much free time, considering the nature of man often as he tried to predict what might happen next. While his past life involved limited philosophical thought, he knew, mainly from movies, that people figured when society failed, everyone would become solely self-interested in their own survival, but he thought this general idea might be flawed. People needed to help one another wanted to help one another, the child sitting across the table from him served as living proof.
Through his ponderings, Hale decided this altruism likely to be an ingrained characteristic, an evolutionary determination. Humans banded together in tribes and worked together to keep one another alive long before civilization existed, he suspected when civilization collapsed this same instinct, to cooperate, would remain.
However, he also felt this instinctual response would be delayed or heavily diluted by hunger-fuelled fear given the massive uncertainty they all existed in now. But, he hoped, once the survivors became established and the situation beca
me better understood and more predictable, people would remember the rationale of banding together. Based on this basic view of anthropology, he decided it wise to wait before trusting strangers, wait until there was more certainty.
Hale finished resetting the checkers’ board, saying, “We have food, shelter, and water. I’m not going to risk that for the joy of taking a freezing walk through rubble to entertain you.”
Luke, tears wetting his eyes, dropped the cat, stood from the table and, wrapped in layers of clothing, waddled out onto the balcony. Hale started to follow but decided to give him some space. He took his time slowly packing up the game, truly relieved he did not need to play the boring game again, at least for a while.
For the first days after Hale found him, Luke seemed numb, either because of fear or grief or both. Then the boy started to cry and could not stop. Hale tried to help him, but there was nothing he could present as evidence things would get better. Thankfully, after a few days, the crying stopped on its own, returning occasionally when he was unable to offer the kid any decent distraction.
There had been some interesting work, but it did not last long. They easily completed the looting of the building as only three other apartments, including Asiz’s, had once been occupied. After that, with the vision of the men with military rifles passing by their building in mind, they spent a hard day securing their floor from intruders.
Using various construction materials, they ensured the stairwell door could not be opened or forced. Hale would have preferred locking down the main floor so enemies could not establish themselves below but with two main doors and a number of windows on the ground level, closing it down was essentially impossible. Shutting off the stairs created an insular, manageable world but any sense of security came with the heavy taint of constant claustrophobia.
