Beyond the New Horizon

by Christine Conaway

  Gina tuned their voices out until it was just background noise for her thoughts, and wondered if people had really changed that much. Every day on the news, or on the internet, and when she had one, the newspaper, people were committing horrific crimes against each other. It wasn’t only in the United States, but everywhere.

  This solar storm, if Ben is right, would only magnify the already divided nation’s problems. The protests, riots, and killing of police officers had intensified in nature and in number. Businesses, families, and lives were being torn apart by people who should have been working toward unity, not ripping families and lives apart.

  They only had Ben’s word, that Spokane or even Couer d’Alene were gone, but he had no reason what so ever to lie to them unless he was one of those bad guys he was talking about. With the way that he protected Abby and his actions around them, she almost chuckled out loud at the thought.

  Sitting and thinking about the past week, Gina wondered if they could survive a winter in an abandoned mine. They would run out of food long before the snow left unless they could hunt and fish to supplement their food stores. They may be reduced to gathering edible roots if they could even find any.

  The problem with hunting was the noise. Gun shots were sure to bring more problems. They could not be confused with cars backfiring or fireworks. She thought again about the box of books she had chosen to leave behind. Now, she realized how incredibly stupid it was. The weight of a couple of books wouldn’t have made any difference to Gus or the horses. Gina briefly wondered if leaving them behind had been her denial they would ever need them. She recalled Journey getting one from one of the guys they’d met last year during their vacation.

  Gina didn’t remember the title, but she thought it was something about the “Lost Ways of Our Ancestors” or something along those lines. Gina wished she had some of the knowledge from her great grandparents right about now. She knew they had not only survived in conditions that she and her friends found themselves in, but had thrived, without any of the luxuries and electronics that Gina had had at her disposal most of her adult life.

  Journey had looked at the book, flipped some of the pages so she could say that she had looked at it if ever asked, laughed and placed it on the shelf in their library, which was just that one shelf. They didn’t have many books, mostly medical journals and a few romance novels that Journey sometimes picked up.

  “I guess we'll just have to wing it and learn as we go,” she said under her breath. The truth of it was while her grandparents would have been thrilled to pass on their knowledge, Gina had never found the time to listen. “I should have made the time,” Gina said softly. Looking up, she found Journey staring at her, chin out, eyebrows raised in question.

  “What’s that?” Journey asked as she saw the puzzled expression on Gina’s face, “The others have gone to bed and you and I get to stand guard duty for the first shift.”

  As if to confirm her words, Gina looked around and saw that Lucy, Ben, and Abby had indeed gone to bed. “Who’s idea was this, or do I need to ask?”

  Journey stirred the coals with a long stick, “While you were taking a walk down memory lane or whatever the hell you were doing, the rest of us were planning how to stay safe. Ben thought it would be a good idea to at least show the pretense of security.”

  “I agree. I was thinking the same thing earlier, at least until we find out who else is up here. For all we know, they could be as bad as the group down below, or even worse.”

  As far as Gina was concerned, it was like Ben said before, people will do anything to survive, no matter what kind of people they had been before the collapse.

  Journey nudged her with her knee and held out her sleeping bag to Gina. “You might want to wrap this around yourself to stay warm. I’ve laid out our shelter half over here under the trees,” Journey said and walked across the clearing.

  The fire was barely more than a glow in the circle of rocks and Gina wondered what she had missed out on while lost in her own thoughts. Bedroll in hand, she rose and followed Journey to the tree line. Sitting with her back against a tree trunk, she looked around. It was too dark to see her watch so she had no idea what the time was.

  “How long is our shift?”

  “Ben said until we can’t keep our eyes open or our senses alert. That’s why we’re watching in pairs so we can keep each other awake.”

  Gina agreed it was a good idea. Even without conversation, just knowing someone else was close by was a comfort. They sat in silence arms touching through the material of their bags. The cloud cover prevented even the smallest amount of moonlight from penetrating through. The night was as pitch black as she could ever remember being out in.

  Gina felt Journey’s posture go from slack to completely rigid and thought she must have heard something that she had not. With just a small rustle from her nylon bag, she leaned toward Journey and whispered, “What?”

  “A shadow…by the tree,” Journey breathed out.

  “It must be your imagination because there is no moon to make shadows.”

  Gina cocked her head off to one side, hoping to hear whatever it was that Journey thought she saw because there was no way for her to tell which tree Journey was talking about. With the night sky and cloud cover, Gina couldn’t see Journey even from the short distance they were apart.

  After several minutes when they neither heard nor saw anything else, Journey relaxed back against the trunk. “I guess it was my imagination playing tricks. I really don’t want to see anything. I’m not sure what I would do if there had been something there.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. The what we would have done, thing. I’m finding it hard to believe everything could have deteriorated so quickly, even if the power grids went down. People aren’t animals, but according to Ben, the ones he met were less than desirable company.”

  “ I’m not ready to think about it either. I kind of wish we had seen whatever it was with our own eyes. It would have given the whole idea more credibility to all of us.”

  “What if it never happened and we’re overreacting to something that has a simple explanation?”

  “You don’t believe Ben then? I mean, it’s not like we know the guy or anything,” Journey said in a whisper.

  Gina nudged Journey, “I didn’t say that. I do believe him, and we saw some of the aftermath with all of the stalled cars, but…I guess seeing it first hand would have made it real.”

  Journey yawned, her jaw cracked, sounding loud in the silence. Journey started to giggle, when an answering “Crack,” exploded from somewhere close by.

  Both girls froze breath held and listened. Silence. Just as Gina let her breath out, a cracking and breaking of brush made her draw it in again and hold it. She had a hold of Journey’s arm and didn’t remember grabbing it.

  It sounded like something or someone was running away from them through the woods not caring how much noise they made. They hadn’t heard the pounding of running feet, just the sound of something pushing their way through the brush.

  The horses, silent up until then nickered and moved around nervously. Gina looked in their direction, but couldn’t see them. She knew Gus would have let loose if it was something he considered a threat to them.

  “I’ll bet that was a deer or something. Or maybe a raccoon. Whatever it was, made way too much noise to be anyone trying to sneak up on us.”

  “Maybe someone moving in the woods scared whatever it was that ran away.”

  Journey returned Gina’s elbow from earlier. “Don’t say that. I was okay with it being an animal.”

  “Unless something scared it or it picked up our smell, there was no reason for it to run,” Gina paused and drew in a lung full of air through her nose. “Do you smell the same thing I smell?”

  She waited. Journey finally answered, “An old dirty ashtray?”

  Gina nodded, and then whispered, “Yes. Exactly.”

  They waited, and when nothing happened and the odor dis
sipated, they settled back against their trees.

  “How long have we been out here?”

  Gina, unable to see her watch whispered, “maybe two hours or a little less.” She felt Journey slump as if she was disappointed in Gina’s time frame.

  “You’re kidding me. It feels like a whole lot longer than that. Are you sure?”

  Gina wasn’t sure about the time, but she knew it hadn’t been that long either. “If you’re tired, go wake up one of the others and go to bed.”

  They sat in silence for a while longer, and Journey began to nod off. Gina felt it when her friend slumped against her shoulder. She gently shook journey awake, “Go wake up Ben or Lucy. I’m going to sit here for a while longer, so you only need to wake one of them.”

  As Journey stood up, the slither of nylon sliding against nylon sounded loud in the still night. As if she hadn’t heard, Journey gathered her bag up and left.

  Gina grimaced at the sound but knew it couldn’t be helped. Everything made a noise of some kind when it was moved, and she couldn’t have asked Journey to leave her sleeping bag behind.

  Within minutes of Journey leaving her side, the hair on the back of her neck tickled, she slid her hand down to rest on her gun. Gina didn’t hear Ben’s approach, but felt his presence before he spoke, “It’s just me.”

  She relaxed and caught him up on what they had heard and what she had smelled. “As an ex-smoker, I know what stale cigarette smoke smells like.”

  “We were right to keep a watch tonight then. Tomorrow, you and I go do a little spying on our neighbors. We really do need to know how many and what type of people they are. I don’t want to meet them from the wrong end of a gun barrel.”

  “Wouldn’t Lucy be a better choice in partners? She is way more experienced with firearms than I am.”

  “I’m hoping for it to be a fact-finding mission, not one where we actually have to use guns. Besides, I don’t know for sure, but I’m beginning to get the picture. Lucy wouldn’t be able to move stealthfully through the brush.”

  Gina felt bad for not being able to tell Ben what was going on with her friend, “Tell you what, tomorrow Lucy will tell you or I will. I am hoping it will come from her, but it’s only fair you know what each of us is capable of.”

  Gina felt his body move as if he was nodding, “Was that an okay or what,” she whispered.

  “That was an okay, but before we do anything tomorrow, I want to get that gate open, check out the cave and possibly move our stuff into it. We need to figure out what to do with the horses as well. Those bags of feed or the bales of hay won’t feed them through the winter.”

  “That I do know, and I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. I have some thoughts, but right now I’m too tired to think.”

  “Why don’t you stretch out here if you’re warm enough and that way if there’s trouble, I won’t have to go far to wake you?”

  Chapter twelve…………Sleep of the dead

  Gina hadn’t thought she would sleep at Ben’s suggestion and was surprised when she woke to see tree limbs above her head and not yellow nylon. Ben was not sitting beside her as he had been when it was dark. She rolled to her side and looked around.

  The gate blocking access to the mouth of the cave was open, a fire ring had been built in front of the entrance. Someone had dragged a couple of logs to the fire-pit. Lucy was sitting on one while Journey kneeled in front of her doing something to Lucy’s leg. Abby stood beside Journey watching intently.

  Ben sat on another log across the fire from them, his head thrown back laughing. Dragging her arm from under her covers, Gina looked at her watch. “Well, damn,” she said and threw her sleeping bag off. It was after ten, and she couldn’t believe she had slept so late. Kneeling, she rolled it up and gathered up the shelter half they’d been sitting on.

  The clouds had passed, leaving the air fresh and clean. The hills she could see on the north side of their clearing were crowned in solid white with a light dusting trailing down to the lower elevations.

  “Morning, thanks for letting me sleep. I didn’t realize how tired I was,” Gina’s stomach growled loud enough for all of them to hear. She rubbed it, “Nor how hungry either.”

  Lucy pointed to a pot sitting on one of the rocks, “Today is your lucky day. We saved you some oatmeal.”

  “Oh yum…you know how much I love the stuff and especially without milk.” Gina wrinkled her nose up in distaste. She not only didn’t eat oatmeal at home, but she was also that same person who didn’t like oatmeal cookies.

  “Daddy went and got water and Miss Lucy made us some milk.” Abby pointed to a water bucket sitting in front of the cave. “Daddy filled the bucket with snow, so it’s cold.”

  Gina looked at Ben, “You’ve been busy today. Guard duty half the night, and you’ve provided us with refrigeration. Nice!” She picked up the pot and looked inside. “Great…oatmeal and powder milk, my two favorite foods.”

  “Gina, just shut up and eat it. Be grateful we saved you any. It’s actually not that bad.”

  “When Daddy and Lucy went and got the snow, Lucy fell and hurt her leg.”

  Sitting and watching Journey slide the sleeve over Lucy’s stump, it dawned on Gina that Lucy had to have told Abby and Ben or maybe, she no longer had a choice. Watching her, Lucy didn’t seem embarrassed or bothered by the added attention from Abby.

  Gina scraped every drop of oatmeal from the bottom of the pot. She had to admit, once she had mixed the milk and oats together, it hadn’t been half bad. For the first time in days, she could honestly say that she was full.

  Setting the empty pot on the ground beside her she looked to see what else had been accomplished while she slept. The bales of hay were no longer where they had stacked them, the blue tarp was folded and tied in a bundle. The bags of feed were also out of sight. She found it hard to believe she hadn’t heard anything.

  “Did you guys save anything for me to do?” Gina asked with a laugh.

  “Oh yeah, there’s plenty to do. But first, you and I are going to do what we talked about. We need to see who’s at the cabin and if possible, find out if they came to spy on us and why.”

  Journey was finished helping Lucy with her prosthetic, and Gina wondered why Lucy wouldn’t be the best person to accompany him.

  “I know what you’re thinking, and like Ben said before, you’re the best person to go. I wouldn’t get half way there on this leg. Instead of listening to you, I had to be stubborn, and now I am going to try to stay off it until my stump heals.”

  “And that’s exactly what she needs to be doing right now. Otherwise, she won’t be walking anywhere. I don’t know how she made it this far without complaining,” Journey said and slapped Lucy’s knee lightly to indicate she was finished with it.

  “Because Daddy says she’s the iron lady.”

  “Abby, you’re taking my words out of context, and you’re not supposed to repeat what I’ve said to you in private. What I said was, I thought she was as strong as steel.”

  “Sorry, but it wasn’t a bad thing you said. I don’t repeat the bad things,” Abby said and moved to stand by Lucy. “I like her too, and I wouldn’t say anything mean.”

  Lucy reached up and put her hand on Abby’s which now rested on her shoulder. “I like you too. Now, what do you say to us getting the dishes washed up organizing the cave while your Dad and Gina are gone?”

  “And I’ll help by getting water for these horses, or maybe I’ll just take them all down on lead lines to drink,” Journey said.

  Ben carried his rifle slung over his shoulder and side by side, they set off up the road.

  “How do you want to do this? Are we just going to walk in or do you want to try and observe them from afar?”

  “I’d like to take a look before we go in. Any ideas there?”

  Gina thought about their earlier visit to the cabins, “We could stay on the road to the trail up to the second cabin, and come in from up there. We found a path between
the two, but not big enough to ride the horses on. It’s some pretty dense brush between them and the one I think they could be in, sits lower on the hill than the fallen down one.”

  “Well, that could give us an advantage.”

  Gina didn’t understand why he thought they would need an advantage, but followed along until they reached the correct trail. On the road, they hadn’t seen signs indicating that anyone had come down the road the night before. As near as they could tell, there were no scuffs, footprints or markings that had not been made by them, their horses or the travois.

  “Okay, call me stupid, but what is the advantage of being uphill? The brush was so thick I don’t think you could see anything.”

  “It was thick two weeks ago, but now, probably not.”

  Ben was right. It wasn’t something Gina had given much thought to. But, if they could see down to the cabin, the people there would be able to see them too. Then she noticed that Ben was in all camouflage and she would blend in also with her brown pants and gray top. Now she understood why Journey had insisted she change out of her Levi’s, the blue would have been easier to see.

  It didn’t take long for them to reach the cabin. Someone had put a canvas tarp over the sunken roof and from the look of it, had removed the loose wood from the inside of it. Rotten wood and debris were stacked a short distance away from the structure.

  Ben and Gina sat and watched it to see if anyone was still there. After a half an hour, Ben, held his hand up to indicate she should stay. Gina nodded.

  She watched as Ben worked his way to the structure and disappeared from her sight. Gina held her breath until he peeked around the corner and waved her to come down.

  At his side, he whispered, “This is where they are keeping their horses. Gina nodded, the horsey smell of manure had already told her as much.

  “They’re not in there right now, but it looks like someone has been cutting grass for them.”

  “That’s what I had considered doing for ours too. I’d like to save the hay and pellets for when we can’t pull grass for them or find it under the snow. I wish one of the meadows were closer to us and we could have hobbled Bess and turned the others loose.”