Beyond the New Horizon: The Last Sun,

by Christine Conaway

  Sam looked from the two men to Mary, and she nodded, “You go, Sam, we’ll be alright,” she said with a nod at Evelyn.

  Sam sighed and turned to follow Willy and Charlie. He couldn’t imagine what was so important to take him away at that moment. The expressions on their faces told him they were aware of John’s passing and he wondered if he was the last to know. He felt the burden of his grief as he followed them to the shaft that Lucas and Matt had been working on.

  Sam was surprised to see all the young people in a group without the constant arguments that had plagued them the past few weeks. He saw the excitement on their faces, and he wondered what had caused it.

  Willy pointed up the shaft. Sam tipped his head and looked up. He thought someone would have removed the hide they used to stop the cold airflow, but he didn’t see the lighter circle of sky that offered a view of the handholds. “Wait a minute. Isn’t it supposed to be light out there?”

  Willy nodded, “Yep…supposed to be. You might want to climb up there and have a look for yourself.”

  Sam did, feeling for each foot and handhold as he climbed. Usually, light from the opening would be enough to illuminate the upper half of the shaft, but not today. Sam pushed his head followed by his shoulders out through the opening, prepared to see the moon or at least the leaden gray skies.

  He stared around in awe, “Well, holy shit!”

  “You see it?” Charlie hollered from down below.

  Sam nodded and realized that Charlie couldn’t see him. “I see it, but…what the hell,” he breathed out as he stared at the phenomena, taking in deep breaths of the freezing air. Sam had never in his lifetime ever seen anything as breathtaking as an eclipse. He had slept through the one from the year before after a late night in the bars.

  The black sphere of the moon was outlined by a circle of fire. He thought he could see the individual flames bouncing around the outside edge, but knew without the special glasses it would be impossible. He was prepared to duck his head or close his eyes as the sun moved out from behind the moon and waited several minutes. When he didn’t see the fire around the outer ring thin as it should have, before showing itself, Sam frowned. He waited for the fingernail of the sun to emerge and racked his brain to remember how long the eclipse last year had lasted and thought it had been just a few minutes. Something was wrong, and he wondered if when he and Mark had had their ill-planned ice party, they hadn’t witnessed their last sun. A chill ran down his spine as he thought about it. Without the sun, they would all die. Their food supplies were almost gone, and he wondered about eating the dried grass they had stored for the animals. They could begin eating the chickens, rabbits, and goats, but that would only put off the inevitable, and soon they would run out of wood to cook the meat. Sam didn’t know if they would be reduced to eating the horses or if they would be better off to just shoot them. He would rather kill himself to save on food if it could mean that Lucas, Matt, Charlie’s boys, and the girls could have a chance at life. He realized there were no guarantees, that any of them would make it out alive.

  Sam slowly retraced his steps down the chute. He was surprised when he felt someone grab his leg, as his foot hit the dirt on the bottom. “How long has this been going on?”

  “It was like that when I went up an hour ago, and everyone had a turn up there ahead of me,” Willy told him.

  “Something is dreadfully wrong. No eclipse would last as long as this one is, and if you paid attention, it’s colder outside right now than any day before this,” Charlie said.

  “If I hadn’t experienced it, I wouldn’t have thought that being colder was possible and I have no explanation for that…that,” Willy pointed the direction of the flue, “whatever is going on up there.”

  “Whatever is going on up there is impossible. We rotate around the sun, and the moon rotates around us. Whatever is going on could be catastrophic for all of us, because there is no way we’ll ever warm up if the sun and the moon don’t part ways.”

  “Oh, come on Sam. Stop saying it’s impossible and whatever, you saw it for yourself. This has to be some kind of a freak occurrence. Just think about it, last year, total coverage only lasted seconds over two minutes. What’s going on up there can’t happen, but you saw it for yourself. It’s happening.”

  “What I see as impossible, is having an eclipse like this two years in a row, but there it is, and I don’t have an explanation.”

  Charlie, Sam, and Willy walked back to the main chamber where the warmth of the fire had diminished to little more than a memory of heat. They stood close, trying to capture some of its warmth.

  Joe carried more pieces of wood to add to the flames. “We’re getting low on wood,” he said as he arranged the pieces around the glowing bits of log already there. “I guess we’ll be rationing this next.”

  “When the wood is gone, we lose more than just the pitiful amount of heat it puts off, but we lose our light source as well. We’ll be like bats bouncing off the walls, but without their radar,” Charlie said and rubbed his hands together and then held them out to the fire. He watched the tendrils of flame greedily lick at the wood until the first splinter ignited.

  Willy, who had watched Joe arrange the wood in silence, finally spoke, “I’m no scientist or anything close, but think about this for a minute. What are the chances, the earth was knocked off her axis by the last earthquake? Even by a few degrees would bring changes that we can’t even imagine. Maybe this is the beginning of a new ice-age, and we’re all destined to go the way of the dinosaur.”

  Sam laughed softly, “Yeah. I wonder what the future people will think when they dig into this cave and find our bones? Hell, we’ll probably be considered dinosaurs ourselves.”

  “What future people are you talking about? We might very well be the last civilized people to inhabit this earth,” Charlie asked.

  Sam looked around at his friends and wondered if Charlie could be right. He knew that he and Gina had lost weight and looking at Charlie and Willy he saw they were barely more than walking skeletons. They had all given up on shaving and haircuts, and their clothes looked like they had come from a rag bag. Evelyn had tried to use thread she had pulled from un-useable garments to mend with, but the fibers were weak, and sewing with the reclaimed fibers was impossible.

  They had agreed that the children should be given full portions of food, but with the rationing, a full portion still wasn’t enough to sustain their appetites or energy level and the girls spent most of their time in bed. The activity level of Matt and Lucas had dropped the past few weeks and even they spent more time sitting than exploring. Lucas’s shaft had provided a diversion until climbing up it took more energy than they had to spare.

  Sam sat looking into the smoldering fire, wondering what would happen next and who would be the next to die.

  Chapter Twelve

  While they had all known about John’s headaches and the cause, and knowing it was imminent, his death had not been easy for any of them to accept. What Journey was telling them now was even harder.

  She stood between Evelyn and Mary an arm around the shoulders of the two women. “There’s nothing we can do now but wait,” she said, her voice filled with sorrow. She hid her fears that the frostbite had weakened his system enough for his diabetes to decimate him. His nose and ears had turned black with infection, and she was sure that Mark knew. He had Charlie bring him one of the bibles that Charlie had rescued. Mark didn’t open it, but caressed the cover, until he’d left shiny finger marks on the cover, saying the words from inside the book from memory.

  Evelyn reached up and took Journey’s hand and patted it as if comforting Journey, “You did all that you could, dear. We knew it was only a matter of time. Mark had just hoped to see the sunshine one more time before he left us.”

  The group sat around the fire sitting as close as they dared, savoring the feeble amount of warmth it gave off. While they hadn’t known each other well before the apocalypse, they each felt the sorrow of l
osing another family member.

  Lucas, who had been smoldering with guilt over the loss of his father, jumped to his feet. His face was red, and he had clenched his hands into fists. “What is this? Are you all going to drop dead one at a time? First Bear dies, then the mare, then we find out we have nothing to eat but meat flavored water, then Dad and now Mark? It’s not fair! I wish I had been killed in the beginning!” He turned and stormed away, but they all heard him crying as he left.

  “I’ll go,” Gina said when Mary made to follow him. Mary nodded gratefully. She had enough on her plate without having to deal with a teenaged boy’s tantrum. Gina knew it was more than just a tantrum because she had been thinking the same thoughts. They had all heard the argument Lucas and Mary had that morning when it was announced they would have to ration their wood. Lucas had been loud and vocal, and when Willy had risen to intervene, Mary had waved him off. She understood that Lucas wasn’t protesting the use of firewood, but expressing his grief over his father, the lack of wood was the catalyst that allowed him to release the pent-up emotions he had been holding inside.

  Sherry and Maggie both walked around red-eyed and weepy, unafraid to show their grief, but Lucas had not said anything. He had closed himself off to everyone until Willy had announced they were rationing the firewood.

  Between Willy and Charlie, they managed to carry Mark out to a pallet, that Evelyn and Mary had set up beside the fire. Mary had explained to them that Mark was in a diabetic coma and she didn’t know if he would ever wake up. She said that doctors didn’t know if patients were aware of what went on around them, but she thought they did. Using the light from the fire, they were going to take turns reading Mark’s bible to him.

  As if the reading would bring comfort to them, the group situated themselves around Sherry and Maggie, who had elected to read it together, taking turns with the verses. They swore they were going to read it non-stop until he either woke up or was no longer there.

  Journey knew that with no way to feed Mark and as thin as he was, he couldn’t live long without hydration or food. While the girls began on the first page, she wondered if he could possibly live to hear the ending. Journey almost laughed out loud, but stifled herself. If anyone knew how it ended, it would be Mark. More than once he’d wondered out loud if they were living the book of Revelations already, but Evelyn had reminded him that the young people were still there. Mark had gotten the faraway look in his eyes and agreed.

  “Yes, they are. If anyone is deserving of being lifted up, it would be them.”

  “I’m not too sure about that,” John had said every time he’d heard Mark. “Taking a life is not conducive to getting into your heaven.”

  “Rest assured John, those children are all innocents in the eyes of the Lord.”

  It was an old conversation between two good friends, but no one had ever tired of hearing it.

  Sam caught up with Gina and stopped her before she found Lucas, “Are you sure that you wouldn’t rather have me deal with this?”

  “What? And let you use your, “if you’re going to be a man you better be tough,” speech on him?” Gina used her finger to draw quotes around his words.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort. You forget that I was his age once myself. John and I had a father that was far stricter than John. When we were fourteen, we wished many a time that the old man would just drop dead. It’s a natural thought for most boys at that age. With the way that John treated Lucas when they left the ranch, I’m pretty sure that Lucas is reliving every time he’s had the same thoughts. I’d say he is carrying around a heavy load of guilt right now.”

  Gina considered Sam’s words and understood that Sam did know what he was talking about. Lucas hadn’t come right out and said the words, but he had hinted to her that he wished he could stay and leave when she and Sam did. He hadn’t wanted to be around John at all. Having seen the interaction between father and son, she’d wondered if John hadn't been too hard on the boy.

  They could hear soft crying from up in the chute and knew exactly where Lucas had gone. He considered the shaft his personal area because if not for him, they wouldn’t have it.

  Just as Sam went to walk off to go to Lucas, they both heard someone moan. It hadn’t come from the direction of Lucas, but from the couples sleeping area.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake! What now?”

  When Sam went to follow her, she said, “I’ve got this. You take care of your uncle duties and please don’t bring up the words, man and tough in the same sentence.”

  “I wasn’t planning to,” Sam grumbled as he went one way and Gina went toward the sleeping area.

  It was dark, and Gina felt her way around the area Andy and Journey’s pallet was in. Against the far wall, Ben and Lucy had their area.

  “Lucy,” Gina breathed out. It was Lucy that she and Sam had heard, but Gina thought that Ben was with her.

  “Ben? Lucy? Honey are you okay?”

  Lucy groaned again, and Gina dropped to her hands and knees rather than risk tripping over and landing on her.

  As soon as Gina touched Lucy, she knew the problem. “Journey! Come quick.”

  Journey came brandishing a branch of fire to light her way. Behind her stood Evelyn followed by Mary. As soon as she saw Gina kneeling beside Lucy, she handed the limb to Evelyn.

  Journey dropped to her knees and rested her hand on Lucy’s stomach. She felt the muscles’ crown into a hard line down the middle as her body moved the baby down into the birth canal. As soon as Lucy’s muscles relaxed she began to count. She looked at Gina when within a minute the ridge started to form again.

  “We need to move her out to the fire. I can’t see nothing in here.”

  By the time they had gotten Lucy moved out beside the fire, her contractions were coming non-stop.

  Everyone but Mark and the women were herded off to find other things to occupy them. Most of them took to their beds, with Ben or Abby popping in every few minutes to check on Lucy. Each time, Evelyn would shoo them off with a wave from her hand and a clucking tongue. “We’ll call you as soon as it’s time,” she finally said.

  Lucy had delivered in what Journey would have called a record time had she ever delivered a baby before, but she and Gina agreed that once it started, the time flew. The birth of a baby boy had held all four women’s attention, and no one had noticed the passing of a great friend. He had let go in silence, not taking the focus away from the new life.

  Joy and sorrow filled the hearts of the people who came to see the new addition. With the passing of John and Mark and the birth of the new baby, no one knew how to feel. With mixed emotions, Gina walked away. She needed to be alone to regroup and take stock of her feelings. When they’d first found out that Lucy was pregnant, sitting up on the hillside, all three of them had been ecstatic at the prospect, now Gina wondered if the little boy would or could live long enough to see his first summer. The past ten months had shown them that nothing is guaranteed and every change brings its own challenges. Their survival was no longer dependent on their abilities, but on Mother Nature. Right then, Gina thought the challenges she had heaped on them, were more than they could carry.

  “Hey girlfriend, mind if I join you?”

  Gina jumped in surprise when Journey walked up behind her. She had been standing, lost in thought and hadn’t heard Journey’s approach. Without a torch to light the way, they had all learned to count steps for every location in the cave, and now it came naturally to them. Gina could even tell Sailor from the other horses in the dark.

  “I don’t mind. I was…I’m not sure what I’m doing. I guess I’m a little overwhelmed today, or tonight, or whatever the hell time of day it is. I’m just so damn angry right now.” Gina felt her throat closing off, and she hoped she wasn’t going to burst into tears. Crying took so much energy, and she had little to spare. While her momentum had accelerated during the delivery, it left her feeling weak and lightheaded. Drained of everything she had in reserve.
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  “I know. I don’t know how Mary or Evelyn can be so happy when they’ve suffered the most. I know how bad I feel about John and Mark.”

  “As much as I hate to say it, but maybe they are the lucky ones. They no longer have to worry about the kids, or the animals or what we’re going to eat. I can’t imagine starving to death is going to be pleasant.”

  Journey felt around until she found Gina’s arm and held on, “It will be a long time before we have to find out. We can survive on meat, and the winter can’t last forever.”

  Gina turned to Journey, “Yes it can. I heard someone talking about a new ice-age. What if they’re right? I would rather shoot myself right now than to slowly waste away.”

  “Hearing you say that breaks my heart. You’ve always been the backbone and the inspiration that has kept the three of us going strong. To hear you say John and Mark are lucky pisses me right off. I swear Gina if you even think about it again…I’ll kill you myself. We’re the lucky ones…we will get out of here.”

  Gina snorted followed by snickers that turned into laughter. She snorted with each indrawn breath.

  As if she had just processed her words to Gina, Journey started with a chuckle, followed by full-blown laughter.

  It took several minutes for the two of them to rein their emotions in. They both went through cascading levels of happiness and sorrow while holding onto each other. Finally, they found themselves emotionally exhausted and incredibly sad.

  They worked their way to where the horses stood, and Sailor came to the side of the pen, finding Gina in the dark. He nuzzled her for any treats she may have had hidden, but came up empty. He blew his horse breath into her face and whiskers tickled her nose. Gina put her arms around his neck and breathed in his scent. She had always sought out Sailor when she needed to put her thoughts in perspective. He was her anchor as much as her friends were. Many times, in the past, he had helped her see the logic behind her thoughts, but this time, Gina felt sad, angry and afraid. Too many emotions for her to process alone, but she drew comfort from the horse. Running her hands over his neck and back, made her want to cry again. She felt the hard edges of his bones through his hide and was glad she couldn’t see how bad he must look. They had kept the animals on short rations, not knowing how long they could stretch the dried grass out, but it now seemed like the animal feed would outlast the human food.