The Darkest Winter

by Lindsey Pogue

  Del looked at me as he turned down a side street. “Will it?”

  As he drew closer to the buildings and neighborhoods, I nudged Alex awake.

  “You should park just outside the neighborhood,” I told him. “Before we get too far into the populated areas.”

  “Why? We’re still a good mile away from Jet’s place,” he said.

  “If anyone is here, we don’t want them to know we’re coming. Trust me.”

  Del’s face was expressionless, but he nodded, fear a black glimmer illuminated by the trucks dully lit interior. He pulled the truck further up the road, then pulled over under the cover of an empty carport.

  I took my beanie off and ran my fingers through my hair. I wasn’t sure I was ready for whatever we would find, let alone what Del would go through, but it was inevitable. And in a way, I knew that Del was lucky to be with us instead of stumbling into it unaware and even more confused.

  “We go in on foot, take our weapons, and stay out of sight as much as we can,” I told him and glanced at Alex. He knew the drill.

  Del and I got out of the truck, Alex sliding out behind me, and we wrapped ourselves as best we could against the midnight wind.

  The three of us made our way into town against the wind that felt like razor blades. We didn’t talk or stop for a break. We stuck to the shadows and paused every now and again to watch for movement or lights in windows, and to see if any smoke billowed from chimneys in abandoned houses. We listened for sounds that carried in the increasing wind, but the coast was clear.

  There was barely enough moonlight to see as it disappeared behind the clouds, but we made do, only using our flashlights when we needed to. Cars were half-buried in snow, some of them abandoned in the middle of the street, the passengers human icicles inside, but Del didn’t stop to look, neither did we.

  Homes and businesses had icicles hanging from the eaves, and not a person stirred as we made our way down a side street into a sparsely established neighborhood. It was like the entire town was dead asleep, under a dark and dangerous spell.

  Del stopped on a street corner and peered around, not panicked like he was looking for something, but like he was taking it all in. I watched him, waiting for him to say something, but all I could see were shadows across his face. If he couldn’t quiet grasp what I’d been telling him before, he understood it now.

  “It’s the last one on the right,” he said into the wind, pointing down the street.

  Alert with our weapons in our hands, we made our way down the abandoned street. Alex was cautious but walked with confidence. He held his gun like he’d been on a rescue mission a dozen times before. It was a welcomed reminder he would do well on his own.

  An old 4-Runner was parked on the side of Jet’s house, nearly covered in snow that slid from the roof. It hadn’t moved in weeks. And like the other houses we’d passed, the drapes were drawn and everything appeared dark.

  Del tried to turn the front door handle, but it was locked. “I don’t know where he keeps his spare key,” he admitted. Alex headed around the house first and we followed behind.

  Del knocked on the sliding glass door, peering around in the darkness for movement. No candles flickered on and Jet never came. And my unease turned from apprehension to what we might find to a sadness that seemed to settle over all of us.

  Alex gabbed a shovel leaning up against the side of the house and offered it to Del. It would be the only way in, Del knew that much.

  There was a thunk and a crash as the glass fell inside onto the linoleum floor. “Jet? Son, are you in here?” Del stepped through the glass and Alex lifted his rifle as he walked in behind him. My eyes shifted around the backyard, wondering if neighbors or anyone lurking nearby might hear us. Evergreens surrounded the whole backyard, encapsulating the yard in a winter wonderland that hadn’t yet melted.

  Pistol in my hand, I followed them, bracing myself for whatever Del would find next.

  “Son? It’s your father…” Del’s hunting rifle hung at his side, as we swept the galley kitchen with our flashlights and then the adjacent living room that looked untouched.

  Resigned, Del made his way down the narrow hallway, passed a bathroom that had a pile of towels and clothes on the floor, and into a bedroom.

  Del stopped in the doorway and Alex and I hung back, giving him his space. A few breaths passed before Del stepped into the room. I crept forward to ensure the room was clear, and it was, save for a man with a beard tucked into his bed, like he’d fallen into a frozen asleep, and the mound covered in a sheet beside him.[LL95]

  Del stood beside his son’s bed, peering down at him. “He was lucky then,” he croaked. As he crouched down, hesitantly resting his hand over Jet’s. I left the room, a quiet Inuit prayer I’d heard only once reaching my ears.

  I headed down the hall and toward the back door, and I was grateful Alex didn’t follow.

  Del’s son died peaceful in his sleep, but Hannah’s final hours were more gruesome than that. I tried not to think of her terror as her murderer pointed a gun at her, and I tried not to think about her pain as she bled out, or the heartbreak she felt knowing her daughter was dying. I tried not to remember either of them the way they were as I put them in the ground, but it was impossible, and while Del mourned his son, I mourned my family. When we returned to Jade and the others, we’d put on a brave face and be strong again.

  Chapter 38

  Elle

  Sophie, Thea, and Beau were asleep on the bed I’d woken up on, swathed by the heat of the fire burning in the stove and the blankets tangled between them.

  The guys were gone for nearly five hours and still hadn’t returned with Jet’s body. I’d offered to wait with Jade, but she insisted I retire to the cabin with the kids. Granting her privacy while she waited in a state of grief and aching uncertainty was the least I could do. I’d upturned her world with a single word: outbreak.

  But five hours felt like an eternity, one impossible to sleep through despite how many times I commanded myself to close my eyes. My body ached with exhaustion and my mind was heavy, but none of it mattered. Jackson hadn’t known about Slana which meant he didn’t know what I had done to the man in the hallway—what I could do.

  From my pallet of sleeping bags on the floor, I stared up at the wood-slatted ceiling. Since it hurt to breathe, it was the only direction I could lay, and everything inside me was humming. Humming with anxiety, with panic, with dread . . . I wasn’t sure it made any difference what I was feeling anymore. I couldn’t shut my mind off no matter how hard I tried, and the looping thoughts were a chaotic jumble.

  I’d prepared myself for the probability that Jackson would come to make sure we were okay, because that’s the kind of man he was, and then he would leave barely able to look at me for what I’d done. The fire was something that might frighten him but it was out of my control, but the lie was a betrayal no one would easily forgive.[LL96]

  When he’d stepped out of the truck, I’d braced myself for coldness and anger, but the worry in his eyes, the fear on his face—I’d thought for a flickering moment he didn’t care about any of it as long as we were okay. But he hadn’t even known. Whatever I felt in that knowledge wasn’t relief. If anything, the weight of my secrets was heavier and felt graver. He was relieved to see someone he only thought he knew.

  I looked at the kids, bathed in the soft glow cast through the door of the stove. Sophie’s brow furrowed as she dreamed and I wondered if it was my haunting memories she saw tonight or someone else’s. I needed to help her. And I had to tell Jackson what was happening to me and to Sophie. And I had to tell him about his father.

  With my better of the two arms, I manhandled the pillows underneath me, trying to prop myself up more, when I heard Del’s truck coming up the road, a flutter of nerves followed. The truck doors shut and the tailgate squeak open, and after a few minutes of murmurs, I heard the tailgate slam closed. They’d found Jet, and he hadn’t made it.

  I squeezed my eyes
shut and my heart broke for Jade. She’d been so kind to us, and what had been open smiles and warmth today would be sadness tomorrow. And it was the news we brought with us that changed everything. To not have known about something so catastrophic was still unfathomable, and yet it made perfect sense at the same time.

  The cabin door creaked open and cold air whizzed inside. Jackson’s heavy footsteps made the floor creak as he stepped inside, followed by Alex, and then they shut the door and it felt as if the air was sucked from the room and my heart raced.

  Beau stirred but didn’t wake.

  “The foldup cot is for you,” I whispered, peering up at him. “And your bag is next to Sophie’s at the foot of the bed.”

  He nodded.

  Closing my eyes, I draped my arm over my face to give him a modicum of privacy.

  With no downstairs couch to sleep on or separate room to remove himself to, I wondered if Jackson would lie on the pallet beside me or if he’d disappear somewhere to where Jackson goes.

  A strong gust of wind wracked the side of the cabin, making it creak, and I pull the blankets up higher around my neck. When I heard no more movement, I opened my eyes.

  Jackson crouched beside the woodstove, warming his hands. He looked the kids then down at me.

  “They’re zonked,” I reassure him.

  He pulled the latch of the stove and opened it. “You should rest,” he said, and reached for another log to throw on the dying flames. “The sun will be up soon, and we need to gather our things from the Expedition.”

  “I know,” I told him, wishing he’d take his own advice and let his mind rest for once. “But, I need to talk to you about something.” Now wasn’t the time, there was never a good time. But he needed to know there were things to say.

  “Can it wait until tomorrow?” His voice was low and distant.

  “Of course,” I whispered.

  He closed the stove and brushed his hands off on his pants and he stood up. He removed his hat and jacket and cold air wafted off of him, carrying with it a scent I recognized as his. Wood smoke, earth, and whatever it was about him that made him formidable-stoic-alluring-Jackson. He removed his boots and stretched out on the pallet beside me.

  “How’s Del?” I asked. I knew he was grieving, but it was one thing to mourn someone you love and another to find their dead body.

  “Grateful it wasn’t worse, I think.” Jackson’s voice was soft despite its deepness, and he pulled a sleeping bag over him, like being warm was only an afterthought. Our shoulders touched, but barely as he ran his hand over his beard, and let out a deep breath. “Don’t let the kids go into the shed, okay?”

  I glanced over at him, watching the way his eyelashes fluttered with each thoughtful blink. “Okay.”

  Jackson turned his head to look at me. In the silence I could almost feel his gaze, hot and prying me open, searching for something, even if I wasn’t sure what.

  I licked my lips and his eyes shifted down to my mouth, then he looked away. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.

  “I’m glad you’re okay too,” I whispered, tears blurring my eyes. I wanted to say everything and nothing at the same time because tomorrow everything would change. But within moments his breaths slowed and deepened, and Jackson fell asleep.

  Chapter 39

  Jackson

  While Jade prepared her son’s body for burial, the five of us, minus injured Elle, made our way out to the overturned Expedition and trailer on the highway. Not only did we need to gather our things and inventory what we lost, but we needed to get the trailer off the road and out of sight of unwanted passersby. If what little I knew about the Slana visitors was true, and there were more men somewhere close, we didn’t want them to find us or the Ranskins and we’d made it easy with all the tire tracks in the snow.

  Alex and Sophie manned Del’s snow machine, pulling an empty sled behind them, and I drove Thea and Beau in the plow truck, our new and improved family van.

  “Do you think someone took our stuff?” Thea asked, sitting straight and alert in the backseat. Her little heat shifted back and forth as she glanced between the windshield and the back-passenger window. For a second, I wondered if she should have a booster seat still[MOU97]. She was small for her age, or at least I thought she was. I didn’t know the rules of raising a kid, especially when the laws didn’t matter much anymore.

  “Who would take our stuff?” Beau asked her, throwing his hands up like he couldn’t believe she was even thinking it.

  “Wolves,” Thea retorted. “They could take our food.”

  “That’s true,” I told them. “If any animals smelled the food in the bins, they could figure out how to open them. The food may be gone.”

  “What will we eat then?” Thea asked, almost worried.

  “We’ll find more,” I told her. That was the least of our problems right now. While grocery stores weren’t exactly readily available out here, whatever stores we found would likely be stocked with enough food to tide us over. It was finding another decent, working vehicle that had been on my mind. We needed to find one large enough for five and that could carry most of the necessities before we overstayed our welcome. With Elle injured, things would progress more slowly than usual.

  I’d always known she’d done a lot managing the kids, but in the time she took to give herself a sponge bath and change her clothes with one good hand and a broken rib, I’d somehow got the kids their breakfast, dressed, and out the door so Del, Jade, and Took could deal with family business. Of course I had Sophie’s help.

  Elle was in pain, we could all see it plainly on her face, even if she thought she could hide it. So getting a new vehicle, going through the supplies, and watching the kids would be one hell of a task without her. It was barely ten, and I was already spent.

  “Are we going to have a funeral?” Thea asked. She was full of questions. That was her thing, I realized. Beau like to roll his eyes and be part of the big kid action, and Thea didn’t care what was happening as long as she could play in puddles and ask as many questions as she wanted. She was curious and Beau was a thinker. He was observant, and I often wondered what was going on in his head. I didn’t have to wonder with Thea.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” I glanced at Thea.

  “The funeral . . .” she reminded me.

  “Yes, there will be a ceremony for Jet,” I told them. “Later this afternoon, after the sun goes down.”

  “Did someone kill him?” Thea asked quietly. Worried. Sad. Her mind went there first which was a sign of how much these kids had seen. They related the world to violence now, and the Trooper inside me felt like I’d failed them in some way.

  “No one killed him,” I told her. “He died peacefully in his sleep.”

  “From the sickness?”

  I nodded.

  “Just like daddy.” She was quiet and thoughtful, for a moment like her brother, then asked, “Why didn’t we die?”

  Both Beau and Thea looked at me, curiosity filling their eyes. I’d seen it before when they asked if we were their new parents, and I let Elle take that one and buried myself in a bottle of bourbon.

  We definitely weren’t their parents and never could be, but without a better adult figure, it was up to me to explain things to them the best I could, even if I didn’t have all the answers. “I don’t know,” I told her. “I don’t know why some of us died and some of us lived—”

  “We were just lucky,” she finished for me, and her words gave me pause.

  Were we lucky? The past five months had been tough, straight up misery at times, and the past couple days had been a torrential shitshow.

  “Yeah,” I decided. “We were lucky.”

  I brought the truck to a stop as we pulled up to the Expedition a few yards down the road. We needed to get everyone out of it and dragged off the road.

  I looked at the kids. “All right, you got your bags?”

  Thea and Beau lifted two canvas bags each to fill w
ith whatever they could. “Yep!”

  “Be careful of . . .”

  “Broken glass,” they said in unions.

  “And?”

  “If we find your popcorn, make sure we give it to you,” Beau muttered.

  “You got it. Let’s load up what we can.”

  Alex brought the snow machine to a stop beside the truck and he and Sophie climbed off. White puffs of breath floated in the air around them as they stared at the mess we had before us. Alex shook his head, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying with the door shut.

  Thea struggled with the door handle, but Beau, ever the older brother, leaned over and helped her open it, then they both jumped out of the truck. I opened the driver side door.

  “Okay,” Sophie said and clapped her gloved hands together. “Ready? We’re going to see who can gather the most food supplies first.”

  “Okay!” Thea shouted.

  Sophie was feeling better than before we’d left Slana. I wasn’t sure if it was the near-death experience, but she’d seemed less cagey, even if she still kept her distance. Elle and I had only talked a little about Slana. She was going to tell me something I didn’t want to hear, that much I knew. Her face said it all, and I was scared. I didn’t want to hear what those men did; I didn’t want to feel worse than I already did for leaving them there unprotected even if I knew they’d gotten away and were safe now.

  I shut the truck door, rifle in hand, and took a deep breath. The cold air was always welcome, especially in the morning. The sun was out; the sky was clear, and I was glad to know we’d at least get a beautiful day to get a lot done.

  Scanning the tree line and the road, I made a sweep of the perimeter. I wanted to know which critters were in our backyard overnight, and if it was only the animal kingdom I needed to worry about. I followed the patterns in the snow, saw a few birds prints and a tattered bag of bread a dozen feet from the crash site. If Wonder Bread had been the only casualty, I was okay with that.