No matter how strained your relationship, people missed their parents when they were gone.
She finally finished her story. She thanked me for freeing her from the hell the two men had put her through. Once the city was gone, they changed. They became domineering and drunk on power, as well as beer. They started their rampage by killing an old lady down the road who was outside getting firewood. After that, their goal was to leave no one alive. She showed me a closet that was piled with cash and jewelry.
I didn’t want to know where they got that stuff, unless … “They didn’t get any of this from the city, did they?”
She nodded. “They went down to the west side where there were stores. I think they cleaned them all out.”
“Don’t touch any of that. Did you go with them?”
“No. They wouldn’t let me leave the house.”
“You’re better off. A nuclear explosion destroyed the city. Radiation killed those who weren’t killed by the blast. This stuff is probably contaminated. Maybe everything they touched.”
“That means me, too.” She hung her head. “God is punishing me for what I’ve done with my life.”
Maybe, I thought. Maybe the consequences of your decisions are haunting you. Maybe you set yourself up for failure by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When you know your boyfriend is a criminal and you stayed with him anyway? Well, maybe you’re right. I didn’t say it out loud, but not saying anything confirmed in her mind that I agreed with her.
“Do you have a place to go?”
“Yes. There’s a cabin up north that my family owns. I want to go there.” She looked outside. “Where are the snow machines?” she asked.
“You can ride with me back to where the snow machines are.”
She gathered up her things. She didn’t have much. She wanted even less. She just wanted to be out of there.
Once packed and geared up for the cold, we went outside. I put her bag in the sleigh. I picked up my helmet where it had fallen off my sled when I departed so hastily earlier. I brushed it off with a glove and put it on. She climbed on behind me and off we went. It only took a few minutes to get to where the two snow machines were. The ravens had already been busy, and I didn’t care if the older of the two was dead or not before the birds started to work on him. I hoped he suffered, just enough to make him feel guilty for what he’d done.
She looked at the young man in the driveway, even though it was a gruesome sight. Half his head was missing due to the close-up power of my .45. She spit on the gore and then turned without another look. She was obviously more familiar with the young man’s sled. She started it up and slowly pulled out, making sure that she ran over the older man’s body on the way.
She stopped, looked back at me with a smile, waved, and was gone. She’ll be fine, I thought.
Home
It was nice to get back home. The cuts on my face hadn’t bled very much because of the cold. When Madison could get a good look at them, she found BBs that were still embedded. She pulled them out with tweezers while the twins looked on.
“They wanted to kill me,” I started. I told her the story and, personally, I was glad that I had gone and not her. If she had run into them and something had happened to her, I would have probably ended up killing those two anyway, but the suffering attached with that would have been unbearable.
“I freed a young woman, their slave. I didn’t save any others from them. I don’t think I want to go back to Goldstream or anywhere around there. People are probably afraid and would shoot at us. We need to give it time. Let’s stick with this side of Steese. This is our world.” I thought for a minute, then added, “Maybe we can make sure that our world doesn’t turn into anything like that. Just like those two decided to remake the world as they wanted it. What they wanted was for themselves. What I want is for our kids, for you to be happy.”
I shook my head. “I’m not saying it right. I’m sorry. I’m so angry at people. How could they? We’re better than that, we as a people, not just us.”
Madison touched my face. She was so supportive. She married me because of who I was. This crisis brought the real me into sharp focus. I would do anything for my family and then I would do anything to build a world in which my family would be happy to live. Sometimes, these two priorities competed as they had today. I risked my life in trying to rally survivors, which put my family at risk. If I hadn’t done that, then maybe, just maybe, those animals would have brought the fight to us. The fight would always be there, but if we picked where and when, wouldn’t we be better off? But if we picked the fight, then wouldn’t we be the bad guys? Did we know that we had to fight?
Madison, still holding my face, pulled my chin up until our eyes met. “I believe in you,” she whispered.
The Weekend
The rest of the week was thankfully uneventful. We took the twins to Colleen’s house where she formally introduced them to the horses. The twins were mesmerized. Since they liked dogs, they saw the horses as really big dogs. Bigger was better, right?
Best of all was watching the twins sitting on the back of a horse with full winter hair as Colleen led it around. They changed positions a few times, each getting their fair share of time in the forward seat, holding the horse’s mane.
We left the dogs at home for this visit. They seemed hell-bent on stirring things up as much as possible when anywhere near these super-sized brothers of theirs. If our dogs could have an arch enemy, the horses would be it.
On Friday evening, we were all getting excited to make a trip back to Chena Hot Springs. What did we need to take? What could we bring to the good people of the Community of Chena Hot Springs? How early could we leave to go there safely?
And then the snow started. When I got up on Saturday morning to make my coffee, a few inches had fallen and more seemed to be on its way. As long as it kept snowing, we wouldn’t be able to go. I did not want to get caught in a snowstorm with the twins. We had our tent and sleeping bags, but I thought that was too much risk with no gain. We weren’t tied to weekends anymore. When everyone else awoke, we’d break the news that if the weather didn’t break, we would go tomorrow.
Colleen showed up ready to go and was equally disappointed. She went back home in short order.
We spent the day, everyone in a bad mood, blowing snow, shoveling snow, and generally feeling trapped. In our new world, we had little to look forward to. The days went by slowly, but in a blur. When we made our trip last weekend, we were so energized.
Everyone needs a weekend even if everything you do is simply for survival. Surviving takes work, but living is what we committed to.
As daylight faded away, the snow stopped and the last of the clouds marched past. We received about six inches of new snow, which we dutifully cleaned off. My tractor with snow thrower continued to work magnificently. If it broke down for some reason, then we would use the quad with the blade, still parked safely in Husky’s shed. We hadn’t taken it out yet, but it was available. As long as our generator ran, we’d be able to charge the battery. We had unlimited fuel due to access to the gas station. We were in a good position.
And we still needed our weekend. It looked like tomorrow would be the big day. A nearly full moon would allow us to leave before sun up. Colleen showed up early.
So away we went. The only ones not ecstatic to get on the road were the dogs. They had to stay in their crates on the towed sleighs. This time, they had blankets and pillows each, along with a rather rude amount of dirty laundry. They would be more comfortable and it was still warm from the recent snowfall. Temps were above zero.
The six inches of new snow didn’t hamper our progress. Madison went first with Aeryn, Colleen and her snow machine were in the middle, and I pulled up the rear. I had Charles with me. Colleen was a long-time Alaskan and a very experienced rider. I expect that she could have made it in half the time if we weren’t slowing her down.
We stopped mid-way to give the dogs a break and top off the
sleds with gasoline. We hadn’t burned very much fuel as we weren’t pushing the speed. The dogs played a little in the snow, but it was too deep for even Husky to have fun. They were more willing to go back into their crates on the sleighs as there wasn’t much fun without a place to play.
After the halfway point, there were very long stretches of straight road. We sped up. At one point, Colleen raced ahead. I think she was stretching the legs of her snow machine and feeling the freedom of flying over the snow. We maintained our pace and caught up to her finally. She was sitting by the side of the road, waiting. She put her helmet back on as we approached and gave us the thumbs up.
It was good to see her having a little bit of fun. The loss of her husband and son weighed on her heavily. She had gone through the deepest stage of depression by herself. She would always carry her loss with her, although I hoped that over time it wouldn’t cause her so much grief.
We continued past Colleen and she raced to catch up. There was plenty of room, so she maintained a position parallel to Madison. They rode side by side as we approached the resort. We slowed and heard the sled dogs barking. We continued under the arch and across the bridge. Snow machine tracks crisscrossed the area. We rode up to the main office to check in and see what kind of progress had been made.
The Community of Chena Hot Springs
– a Little Discord
Amber was at the desk and seemed relieved to see us walk in. The dogs nearly knocked us over racing past to say hi to their old/new friend. She ruffled their ears. “Let’s go to the dining room,” she offered, raising her eyebrows as a signal.
I didn’t understand what she was trying to convey, but it became clear when we arrived in the dining room. Dirty dishes piled the tables and it was in a general state of disrepair. When everyone was in charge, no one was in charge. People probably rebelled right away from their individual roles. They hadn’t worked out how to share responsibility for the jobs no one liked doing, but needed done nonetheless.
“No one wanted to clean up for Jo and Jo wasn’t going to do it since she’s not their servant?” I asked, although I already knew.
“How did you know?” Amber seemed surprised.
“Human nature. Simple as that.” I started cleaning up one table of the dining room, then stopped. “Amber, let me introduce Colleen, a fellow survivor we met this week.” They shook hands, then turned to look back at me. I continued cleaning the table and made a head gesture to another table. Madison dug in, then Colleen, and finally the twins. Amber watched us, mouth open.
“Why would you clean up after us?”
“Because we’re all in this together. No one is better than anyone else. Everyone shares in the burden, everyone gives what they can. If I had a red carpet, I would roll it out for Jo to use. She is special. As are you. As is each person here. We represent a very small minority of people who survived the explosion in Fairbanks. We are all selfish and selfless, but humans demand some level of fairness, too. It doesn’t matter that we should be happy that we are alive. That should be good enough, but it’s not.
“It never is and never will be, because we’re human. Once we’ve made it past one crisis, we race headlong to the next. It’s okay, but it’s something we need to address sooner, rather than later. We need to get through it and very quickly, too.” We moved dirty dishes to the kitchen and started piling them with the dirty pots, pans, and everything used for cooking. It looked like about a week’s worth of mess.
And it only took an hour to clean up as we all pitched in. When the end was in sight, I asked Amber if she could find Jo so we could pay homage and maybe get a nice fresh-cooked meal. We were willing to do whatever Jo needed from us, besides getting our undying gratitude.
We were putting the finishing touches on the kitchen when Jo came in. She looked a bit ragged, but brightened up when she saw her world returned to a level of order that made her comfortable. She directed us on where to put things away. We finished up strong and then I asked if we could make a fresh pot of coffee.
Of course Jo was upset when others treated her like their personal servant. Someone always had a problem with a menu item, many helping themselves by using Jo’s kitchen to make themselves meals and then not cleaning up. People showed up at random times, despite the agreement on a set schedule. so someone always got a cold meal that was supposed to be warm. No one thanked Jo for her efforts and no one seemed willing to help her clean up.
Of course. Because no one had to before and change was hard. We would sit down and everyone would get to speak and then I’d tell them how it was going to be. We would build a work schedule and everyone would take their turn cleaning out the dog kennel, cleaning up after the meals. We would refine who was in charge of what and everyone would be in charge of something. Then everyone would also work as part of the team for everyone else. You better get along or there will be pain when you’re working for the person you are giving a hard time to.
And always do whatever it took to keep the cook happy. This was a lesson I learned when embarked on the USS Belleau Wood as a Marine lieutenant. Our Executive Officer (XO) broke the ice cream machine on our second day at sea. We wore our flight suits with patches, so anyone from our squadron was considered complicit to the egregious crime of our XO. On ship, people liked their ice cream. No ice cream meant that the cook received a tongue lashing every day. He passed that on to us. We had to work overtime to get back into his good graces, including enlisting the aid of our Aviation repair team to fix the ice cream machine. They took time away from fixing airplanes, but for us, it was time well-invested. When the machine was returned to service after a week, peace returned to the ship.
Colleen worked her magic on Jo and they both went into the kitchen. There wasn’t anything thawing that I could see. It didn’t even seem like there was anything from the greenhouse on hand. We had hyped things for Colleen and she had her hopes up. I wanted her to share her story with Jo, how Colleen had lived for a month after the devastation. How Colleen had known, but didn’t want to know. And now, she was really looking forward to a home-cooked meal with fresh food.
I dressed for the hike to the greenhouse. There would undoubtedly be work that needed to be done there, too.
The Greenhouse
The greenhouse was a large facility dedicated to growing tomatoes, lettuce, green beans, peppers, cucumbers, and other greens and herbs. They said they could harvest a hundred heads of lettuce a week. I wonder how the master gardener had tempered that without the demand. I expected their compost pile was rather robust.
Or they could have stopped working the greenhouse altogether. Which is what it looked like. At forty-three hundred square feet, it made for an extensive workspace. There were hundreds of heads of lettuce in all stages of the life cycle. Many were beginning to rot.
Other plants overflowed with ripe vegetables. I didn’t know how this place was supposed to work. Which vegetables were picked first? Which ones were composted? We took a couple buckets and picked some choice-looking heads of lettuce and some other vegetables for today’s meals. I had no problem doing the work, but we’d have to find our gardener to show us what needed doing.
After Phyllis peed on one of the plants, I chased the dogs out of the greenhouse. They had a different perspective of what this building was for. Madison took them back to the restaurant. I kept the twins with me. They could pick some rotted vegetables and put them in what I suspected was the compost pile. If it wasn’t, it was doing a great job of looking like it.
We only spent another thirty minutes pruning, picking, and straightening. The twins had lost their focus and were playing in the mud. It was time to get them cleaned up, and maybe Colleen and Jo would have something ready for lunch. I’d do the dishes even!
I wondered if Madison had found the laundry and gotten anything started. I could always do that in the morning.
I think I needed to talk with the group and try to remove whatever obstacles they had encountered. Adult leadership was all
they lacked. Not being connected was taking its toll. None of them were professionals in the jobs they were doing for the Community. They were the best at what we had, but they hadn’t committed to seeing it through. The more they thought about it, I expect the more they thought it was hopeless.
I needed to talk with them and bring everyone back into the fold.
Rallying the Troops
I brought the twins inside the restaurant and we cleaned them up before they were allowed to touch anything. It was nice being in a place that was warm enough not to wear multiple layers.
We took the vegetables to the kitchen. Colleen and Jo were chatting happily as they prepared something. I could smell bread baking. They grabbed the vegetables from me, and Colleen shooed me away.
Sometimes, all it takes is to get that first person to believe.
As I saw it, there was little difference between this group and a platoon of Marines deployed in the field. Everyone would be unhappy with something. What I had to do was convince them what was in their best interest. I couldn’t order anyone here to do anything they didn’t want to. Last week, I thought my efforts to allow them to buy into what they were doing had been the right approach. I may have been mistaken.
Maybe they were more like our twins than Marines.
Endure (End Times Alaska Book 1) Page 11