Jim ditched his web gear, his body armor, and everything else that was the least bit tactical looking. He felt naked without all his gear but he didn’t know what he would run into. He had to remind himself that his plan involved talking and not killing.
After they stowed the horses in the dense woods, Jim stepped back onto the road and walked past the entrance to the railyard. When he escaped the slushy melting mess and his feet landed on scraped clean pavement, he suddenly felt like a new man. Walking took significantly less effort. He felt like he could walk twenty miles again instead of just three or four.
He tried to give up any appearance of caution and apprehension. He wanted to look like any other hillbilly dumbass out walking in the snow. He’d have to come up with some kind of story. Jim couldn’t remember the exact distance between the railyard the power plant but he had not gone far when he spotted what was clearly a roadblock. A 6x6 military truck in desert tan was parked diagonally, blocking both lanes of the road. Two large antennas sprouted from the vehicle and a water tank filled the bed.
Jim could make out two men sitting inside the cab of the vehicle. The truck was running, the loud diesel carrying across the distance. When he approached they turned it off. They had spotted him. Jim kept walking.
There was a squawk from a rooftop speaker. “This road is closed. Turn around now."
Jim raised his hands to show he was not armed and kept pushing forward.
When Jim insisted on approaching despite the warning, the passenger exited the vehicle. He came around the front of the vehicle with his rifle raised and centered on Jim. Apparently they were nervous enough that he wanted to be ready for a quick shot.
The driver spoke over the PA system again. “Stop where you are or we will shoot. Put your hands above your head and drop to your knees.”
Jim did as he was instructed, glad he’d left his weapons and gear with Hugh. They also had the understanding that Hugh would not intervene unless they tried to arrest Jim or harm him. In that case, Hugh would apply the judicious use of force. Jim was certain Hugh had the approaching soldier dead center of his crosshairs at this very moment.
Jim winced as his knees hit the pavement. He raised his hands above his head. The driver climbed out of the vehicle and provided cover with his own rifle while the passenger approached Jim. The passenger drew his sidearm and let his rifle hang from the sling. The men were in full combat loadout with body armor, bump helmets, and were prepared for trouble.
“On your face!” the passenger demanded.
Jim complied and received a hasty frisking, which wasn’t so easy in the bulky winter clothing.
"State your business!"
Jim adopted a submissive demeanor and tried to appear terrified. “I live back in here. Back toward Pickshin. I saw some lights last night and decided I’d walk down here and see what was going on."
"What's going on is none of your damn business, hillbilly. Showing up here could get your dumb ass killed."
"This is a public road,” Jim said, sounding humble but offended. “I’ve walked it all my life.”
“It’s closed now.”
“Ya’ll fixing to get the lights on?” Jim asked. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
There was no response. He looked from man to man and it was clear they were not interested in disclosing anything. Perhaps they were uncertain as to how much they should talk about or maybe they even had orders to say nothing. They seemed not to know how to deal with him, as if no one had just walked up to the roadblock before and asked them what the hell was going on. He decided to take another tack.
"Ya’ll smoke?" Jim asked.
The men looked at each other. The one closest to Jim, the passenger, looked to be in his mid-20s. He had dark, beady eyes and bad skin. "We like to when we can, but smokes have been scarce here recently."
"You regular Army or a reservist?"
"Regular Army. From the Eastern Shore of Virginia before I got stationed in this shithole."
"How long have you been stationed here?"
“I think he's told you enough." It was other man. The driver. He looked to be in his early 40s and a little shrewder.
"Mind if I reach into my shirt pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes?" Jim asked.
"That better be all you pull out," said the older man.
"I ain't up to anything," Jim said. He pulled the pack of Newports from his pocket and extended them toward the younger man. "You can have the whole pack. I quit."
The man took the smokes and shoved them in his pocket.
"Can I stand?" Jim asked.
"Go ahead, but keep your hands where we can see them," said the driver.
The younger man stuck a cigarette in his mouth then realized he did not have a lighter. He pointed at Jim with one eyebrow raised in a question.
"Yeah, I got one. Can I reach for it?"
"Go for it,” the younger man said.
Jim reached into his pocket and came out with a lighter. He moved toward the younger man, raised his hand to light it, but the younger man retreated and held his hand out.
“Just fucking toss it. Keep your distance."
Jim did as instructed, tossing the lighter to the younger man. He lit his cigarette then tossed the pack and the lighter to the older man who lit one but made a face at the flavor.
"Fucking menthol," he muttered.
Jim shrugged. "You can give them back if you don’t want them.”
The men made no indication that they were interested in doing that.
"So you guys don't have any idea about the power?" Jim asked.
Both men shrugged and shifted around. The smoked and looked at each other.
"They don't tell us much," the older man finally said. “We’re about as bottom tier as you can get in this operation."
"Is the plant operational?"
"You said yourself that you saw the lights," the younger man said.
"I did," Jim said. "But does that mean that the plant is ready to send out power?"
"They been running tests but I don’t understand what they’re talking about. Doesn’t mean shit to me," the older man said. "Our information comes one day at a time."
"How long have you guys been here? I haven't heard anything about this. Not even rumors."
"Months?" The younger guy said, looking at the older guy for confirmation.
The older guy nodded. "Months."
"I have buddies that work for the power company," Jim said. "I'm surprised I didn’t hear rumors about this from their families."
"I doubt your buddies are working here," the younger guy said. "Everybody here is from outside the area. In fact, most of them are from outside the country."
That bit of information shocked Jim. "What do you mean out of the country?"
"News of the world doesn’t seem to make it back here into the sticks, does it?" the older man asked.
Jim shook his head. “There hasn’t been much news about anything, but I’m also not a ham operator. If there is news, I’m not hearing it."
"Power restoration is part of the international recovery effort. There are NATO troops all over the fucking country. French, Italian, Turkish, you name it."
"I had no idea,” Jim said.
"It’s a different world now, buddy. A different country. You might as well spread the word this area is off-limits. When the snow melts, there will be patrols on the road. Trespassers will be killed.”
“There’s a new boss in town,” Jim mumbled.
“You got it.”
"Is there somebody else I can talk to? Maybe an engineer or somebody who has a better idea what the plan is for rolling out the power to local communities?”
The older guy took a drag on his cigarette and blew smoke out his nose. He looked at the cigarette like it was a vile thing whose very existence pissed him off, yet he did not flick it into the snow. "Look, man, there's nobody here you want to talk to. They don't give a damn about you or your power."
Jim was co
nfused. "If they don’t give a damn about us and our power, why are they here? Why are they firing up the plant?"
“Just because the plant is here doesn't mean you have a right to the power," the younger guy said. “By the time we’re done here, this plant will be sending most of its power to new locations."
"What do you mean most? Does that mean we could potentially keep some of the power?"
The older guy did flip his cigarette off into the snow this time, though he’d smoked it down to the filter. "You’ve said enough, Hancock." He looked at Jim. "You need to take a fucking hike. We appreciate the smokes but you need to get your ass out here before somebody with more juice comes along."
"So there's nobody else I can talk to?" Jim persisted.
"We’re trying to be nice here," the younger man said. "But if you were to get past us then the next guard post is manned by foreign troops. They don't speak your language and they damn sure don't give a shit what you are saying. They’ll kill you and throw your ass in the river."
Although Jim was dejected there was nothing else to say. He decided to give it one last shot before he left. "If I was to give you guys a radio frequency, could I get you to send me an update if you learned anything new?"
The older man raised his rifle and levelled it at Jim. "This is where you turn around and start walking. I don't want to hear another word."
Jim imagined Hugh at this point, somewhere in the woods with his rifle laid across his pack. He probably had his safety off and was taking up the pressure on his trigger. Jim understood if he didn't turn around now and start walking, Hugh would err on the side of caution and drop the soldier. Jim could see how he would take the shot; he knew the crosshairs were resting on the base of the man's neck. Jim reluctantly turned and started walking away.
"Do yourself a favor and don't ever come back here," the younger man warned. “You got lucky this time.”
Jim didn't reply. His head was down and his mind was racing. He had tried to live with the awareness that the power might never come back on, or would at least not come back on until vast numbers of people had already died. Still, the little information he’d picked up before the power went out was that, though this attack it been widespread and devastating, it did not knock out everything. There was still oil and there was still fuel, as well as small refineries.
Certainly for a while, demand would outstrip supply, but slowly things would be repaired. The question all along had been whether those repairs would happen soon enough to avoid a large chunk of the population dying off. Now it didn’t look like that was going to happen. That realization brought its own set of questions, its own concerns.
And there was no one to ask.
13
This was the most downcast Jim had been since the collapse took place. He’d never faced a situation for which he felt so unprepared. Certainly there were times he’d been scared or worried but he always felt like he had a chance. What chance was there when you were facing an army? The answer seemed clear. There would be no power for the folks in this area. As wrong as it was, the power would be stolen and routed elsewhere to aid another region’s recovery.
“What now?” Hugh asked.
“There’s a park near here, runs along the Clinch River. They call it Sugar Hill because there was a French settlement there that made maple syrup prior to the Revolutionary War.”
“How far?”
“Couple of miles,” Jim said. “Maybe thirty minutes’ ride in this mess to find a good spot.”
It was nearly dark when they crept into the park on the fringes of St. Paul, Virginia. The sun had already dropped beneath the highest ridge and they had only the remaining ambient light to see by. It would not last long and they preferred to find a place to huddle up before dark so they didn't have a ride around with headlamps advertising their position. They hit the river and steered their horses to a narrow riverside trail used by joggers, fishermen, and hikers.
There were tracks here and there, both man and beast. Jim might have suspected that some of the tracks belonged to people hoping to catch their next meal from the river but each bank was lined with a jagged crust of ice that extended nearly a dozen feet from the edge. Only the center of the river ran free, the water a deep green and surging with its own brand of violence.
They rode along the trail, heading deeper into the park where the mountains became steeper and were more likely to offer shelter. Jim stopped abruptly. "Jesus Christ.”
Hugh dropped a hand to the grip of his rifle. "What is it?"
Jim pointed to the riverbank, to the frozen crust of ice along the shore. On the side of the river closest to them, a man's body lay on the bank, his head disappearing into the ice. Were his body not limp and clearly lifeless, he would look like a man sticking his head through a hole in the ice to watch for fish.
"Shit,” Hugh said. “Haven’t seen that in a long time.”
“You’ve seen that before?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It happened on our farm when I was growing up. A cow was drinking from the pond and slipped on a rock. He hit his head and died. By the time we found him, the temperature had dropped and the pond froze with his head trapped in the ice. We hooked the tractor to his legs and pulled him out so he wouldn't contaminate the pond, but when we tugged on him, his head came off and stayed there in the ice for several weeks before it thawed out. Being kids, we went back to see it pretty often."
"I reckon we won't try to pull this guy out then. I got enough bad shit floating around in my head without having that picture in there too."
"Looks like he was trapping beavers or muskrats.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Jim said. “We’ll leave him to scare the next son-of-a-bitch.”
The men rode on for another fifteen minutes before reaching a fairly remote section of the park where they were not visible from any road or trail. A cliff rose alongside their route, its base strewn with rocks the size of washing machines.
"Reckon we should probably stay here," Jim said. “It’s dark and slick and I don’t want to end up like old Ice Head."
Hugh nodded, the faintest curl of a grin visible on his shadowed face. “Old Ice Head.”
It wasn't quite a cave, but a place where the base of the cliff was back-cut into the mountain, providing a slight overhang that would deflect some of the weather. Appalachian folks called them rock houses because they’d sheltered hunters and travelers for eons. Many of the rock faces were scorched by fires that well could have warmed mammoth hunters.
Depending on how the rock house was formed, a halfway decent shelter could be constructed with the addition of a tarp and a warm fire. By building the fire against the back wall, heat would reflect off and provide significant warmth. Hugh and Jim worked together, using the tarp, branches, and a hank of paracord to construct a shelter. They piled a few rocks on the base of the tarp to seal it down to the ground.
Hugh gathered wood for the night while Jim filled a pot with river water. They got a cooking fire going using old birds’ nests that they pulled from crevices in the cliff. Within a half hour, each man had a cup of hot black tea in his hand and a pouch of chicken tetrazzini rehydrating at his side. Sleeping conditions would be less than ideal, which was usually the case in primitive winter camping. Even with a foam pad, the cold of the ground would seep into their bodies and make it hard to find comfort. Both men were exhausted, and that would help them find sleep. A day on horseback, fighting the cold and maintaining constant vigilance, was taxing.
As his full belly and the warmth of his sleeping bag caught up with him, Jim mumbled at his friend, “Do you want first or second watch?”
"You go ahead," Hugh said. “I'll wake you up in four hours.”
Jim was asleep before he could even agree.
14
The men packed hastily the next morning and were back on the trail at first light. There weren’t a lot of options for crossing the river this time of year. With the ice-covered rocks and the vivid image of
Old Ice Head, they opted to cross using a bridge. In this rural area, bridges could be twenty or more miles apart. Jim knew from living in the area that the public road crossed the river only a few miles from where they’d camped for the night. They both agreed it was better to hit the bridge early and get across rather than waste time looking for a more private crossing, which may never present itself.
With the cold and early hour, the ride back to the park entrance and the mile to the river bridge was uneventful. The town that lay below the road was an old coal town struggling to find its place in the modern world. Prior to the collapse, there were emerging tourism projects such as ATV trails systems and breweries. Now Jim had no idea what remained of the townspeople. Smoke rose from some houses, a beacon of hope that folks remained alive somewhere down there.
Nearing the river, the pair saw several houses below the bridge and along the river with smoke coming from chimneys. River folks in Appalachia were no different than river folk anywhere else in the country. They were the swamp people of the hills, resilient and roach-like in the way they bounced back after every disaster. Let their homes wash away, let them lose all they owned, and they would be back when the waters receded. They would erect a new house or pull in a new mobile home. They would throw out a trotline to catch catfish while they slept. They would shoot snapping turtles the size of manhole covers and chop them into stew. They would fry the prehistoric-looking alligator gar and show it who was boss. No societal collapse would cull those folks.
Jim and Hugh remained on the public road for the next couple of miles to see how it went. They made better time on the smooth surface. The snow was already melting as the temperature began to rise. Pavement was already showing through the heavily-traveled sections of the road. Given the early hour and the winter conditions, they hoped people would remain huddled around their fires and allow them to travel in peace.
It was a mile beyond the bridge that they topped a rise and passed a local funeral home. A forty-yard construction dumpster, a steel vessel the size of a shipping container, sat in the parking lot. The green paint was scorched and peeling, fresh rust coating the bare metal. Pallets and fence posts were piled nearby.
Switched On: Book Six in The Borrowed World Series Page 14