It seemed that they also had talked about the big question – stay or go. Half of them were firmly committed to staying, while the other half were on the fence. At this time, no one had decided to go. I tried to fill the void and ended up spouting some Intelligence Officer nonsense sprinkled liberally with my fear of change.
“We don’t know what’s out there. Why no contrails, no airplanes? Why has no one come? What did the Two Rivers caravan find when they headed to Anchorage? What about John? Why have none of them come back?” I started with these questions to lay the groundwork of my argument. “It seems to me that there is something dangerous out there that’s keeping people away from here. We need more information. Without that, it’s a tough decision to leave. So, how do we find out what’s out there?”
“We have a plane,” Lucas offered. I had seen the airplane tied down off the small runway here at the Hot Springs. I hadn’t thought about using it. The runway was still covered in snow.
“Does anyone know how to fly?” Nope. “Is anyone willing to learn using the Wright Brothers method?” As in, figure it out as you go … There were no takers.
The Community Works
Amber created work groups where three people would make a team for the day to work in areas not their own. She put herself out there a great deal, working somewhere every day. That’s what leading from the front was all about. Two of the four main work areas, the kitchen and the kennel, were worked every single day, multiple times. The dogs required the greatest amount of care. Preparing food for thirteen people and cleaning up did not take a significant effort, but it couldn’t be let go for a full day. The greenhouse required various amounts of work each day, depending on what needed doing. The power plant required someone to stop by periodically and check on valves and systems, but only required a full work detail once a week to keep sub-systems cleaned out and running efficiently.
They also took care of the pool as everyone used it. It was a good place to relax. In the time of guests, the rock pool outside was drained and refilled once a week. Since the loss of Fairbanks, they hadn’t drained it once. Not many people used it this past winter, probably just to say that they swam outdoors on a day of thirty degrees below zero.
Even with the work schedules, everyone worked part of Sunday, but then everyone had the rest of the time off. With a two-hour commitment somewhere, that left the majority of the day free to do as you like.
Becca and Darren moved in together. As a couple, they took two connected rooms and turned one side into a living room and the other into the bedroom. They seemed happy. They made a dynamic pair of hunters. I gave them my 12-gauge shotgun to supplement their high-powered rifle, and they put it to good use. Four caribou and a flock of ptarmigan later, there was plenty of meat and variety for all.
The dogs benefitted as they were treated all the way around. Extra greens from the greenhouse went into their kibble, along with a fair bit of meat. By doing this, the hard dog food lasted much longer. The target of making it to spring would be easily met and they would now make it half way through summer.
A sickness like kennel cough passed among the dogs and many didn’t survive. As it turned out, we lost thirteen dogs to the disease, many of them older. The remainder recovered and stayed strong through the rest of the winter. Everyone had their favorites. It seemed that no matter what work detail someone was on, they would find time during the day to visit the kennel. The dogs had their favorites, too.
Always trust a dog who likes a person.
Lucas was mechanically inclined and became the go-to guy to fix things. There was always something, from a busted water line to a bathroom fan to the water pump for the pool. Lucas was good enough in getting things back into operation. They weren’t pretty when he finished, but they worked. So he was turned loose on the fleet of snow machines and quads to make sure that they ran when needed. He used a number of the vehicles for parts on the others. He kept running what needed to run. Darren and Becca had their hunting sleds always in top shape. There were a couple others that they used to break trails for dog sledding. No one used the snow machines for recreation.
With Jo and Emma paying more attention to each other, there was always two people in the kitchen, which kept kitchen duty to a minimum for whoever was assigned there for the day. They generally carried things from storage to where it would be thawed for preparation. Greenhouse duties overlapped with kitchen duties. It was more moving and cleaning than food preparation or cooking. Sometimes people would volunteer to make their favorite dish. This was encouraged as it kept people in touch with their lives from before and opened the others up to variety.
After things settled in and people got used to doing their share of work as well as leading a work detail, they got more efficient. Work that initially took six hours was down to four. Some things could be done in an hour. There were days where everyone checked in at all the work stations to see if anything needed doing. It had blossomed into a collaborative effort where everyone benefitted.
What did people do in their time off? There were numerous unheated cabins for camping and a yurt on top of the hill where you could go for the best views of the aurora. Some took advantage of this. If help came and they returned to their homes in the Lower 48, they might never get the opportunity again to see the northern lights, to experience the real Alaska.
They consolidated all the books in what used to be the gift shop. Amber had boxed everything from the gift shop and put it all in storage. It would be available if the resort ever opened back up for regular guests. Books filled a void, but also, many people had computers with digital books and movies. The resort itself had a small collection of DVDs for check out, but between the people there, they probably had many thousands of hours of digital movies and TV shows. By pooling what they had, they were able to load up a 1TB external hard drive with nothing but videos. Everyone could download what they wanted onto their individual notebook computers. Some movies were only available on people’s personal iPads. To get one of these, you had to borrow the person’s iPad. This usually meant watching the movie with the owner present. Who knows what else was stored on those iPads.
Surprisingly, the work-out room received a great deal of attention. Everyone was younger and still had things to prove, even if only to themselves. So they worked out. There were mini strength contests of all sorts. Everyone improved their health and fitness. The so-called lazy millennials of today were anything but.
They worked hard to achieve the common good. This system worked well for them, just like a Kibbutz we had visited in Israel a long time ago. It is amazing what happy people can accomplish. These college kids had been thrown off the deep end. They missed their families, and longed for a way to get word out that they were fine. Their families had to be worried.
But it wasn’t time yet to take a chance. They all talked about who would be next to risk leaving and trying to make contact with the outside world, to get word back. They wanted to know what happened. We all wanted to know.
The Master Gardeners
My naïve prepping from the time before paid off in this case. I had purchased an emergency seed pack with thirty-two thousand seeds of a variety of vegetables and a book on how to grow your own food. It was March. We had to become experts immediately to start the seeds and then prepare a garden.
This was Alaska and, as the weather turned, we’d get more and more light until the mid-summer months, where we’d have light for nearly twenty-four hours a day. It was a prime growing season if we prepared everything properly.
The book became my new favorite. It stayed on the dining room table and no one touched it. I had a note pad as I laid out our plan of attack. Preparing seedlings, using a greenhouse, making sure the soil was ready, planting, watering, and more.
Moose. Where we established our garden, we had to keep the moose away. In no time they could destroy a year’s worth of crops. There would be no recovery for us here. We couldn’t simply run to the nursery and replace our plan
ts. But we could always count on the Community as they were producing far more than they needed. We had a safety net. That gave us time to learn by trial and error.
We had a book and could leverage the wisdom of the authors. I wanted to be self-sufficient, while still appreciating the value of the safety net at Chena Hot Springs.
Gardening was a skill the twins could use no matter if we were rescued or not.
Rescue. An interesting word. What would we be rescued from? What were we really missing? The ability to flip a switch on the wall and have lights go on? To have constant heat without having to do any work? To watch television? We were certain that if help came, we would ask for things, but we wouldn’t leave. The other world lost its allure. We had grown very close as a family. That isn’t something to be rescued from. What would happen now if we went back to the way it was? I was sure that we wanted more of this and less of that.
So gardening it was.
There was a creek at the bottom of the hill between us and the gas station. It was about a half-mile away, but once things thawed, we’d have running water. I had no idea how to check if the water was potable or not. As it was the only source in the area, we needed it to be good. I would have to follow the stream up the hill until it was well past any populated areas just to see. As long as there weren’t any car batteries dumped in the stream or whatever, I thought we’d be fine. The wells in this area pumped water that smelled horrible. That would be an obvious bar to use. Pumped water. No one’s well was pumping anything nowadays.
Soil was unlimited, but good soil was in short supply. I’d ask Colleen for some help. The horses produced a great deal of manure, and it needed to be moved out of the stables in any case. We could use the truck from the house on the corner of our neighborhood. We could do it, but it would take more work than what I had done in the winter. Siphoning and hauling wasn’t that demanding. I was down to a lean hundred and seventy-five pounds. I lost a total of fifteen pounds over the winter. Not bad, and our trips to the resort probably kept me from losing more weight.
Three of our neighbors had small greenhouses, but without a way to heat them, they wouldn’t do what we needed. I wanted to build a greenhouse on our parking pad and heat it using the generator. Once we started the seedlings, we couldn’t take a day off. We could never let the greenhouse get below freezing. Water, heat, and light were critical for the plants at all stages. We had a plan. Time to get to work.
Time indeed
It seemed like we had all the time in the world. The only deadlines were of our own design. There was a certain freedom that we enjoyed. We received no bills. We traded in things and knowledge. We worked at the resort for the meals they provided. We weren’t a burden on any other person. It was liberating.
We shared our time with those in the same situation, working hard day in, day out to survive.
There were two things I always had with me and that was my wallet and my .45. I hadn’t needed my wallet since November, but I felt like I was missing something with an empty front pocket. My pistol was in my shoulder holster and seemed a part of me. I needed it at times when my life was in jeopardy. It was my safety blanket more than anything else.
And then there were the dogs. Phyllis and Husky were inseparable. They always stayed close to their humans. They understood their role as protectors of the twins, although the dogs probably caused more falls and scrapes than anything that threatened the two toddlers. I think our dogs would take on a pack of wolves to keep any of us safe. It was the same thing I’d do.
Our new world was so much smaller, yet more fulfilling. It was odd. How much life had we missed out on before? Everyone complained about the fast pace of modern society, but no one left their smart phone at home. We struggled for just one more thing, one more award, one more year toward retirement.
Now that we had time, we took the time to be thankful for what we had. Months after the world changed, we still reviewed everything we had done during the day to make ourselves just a little bit better. It wasn’t about things. It was about what we did for each other, about what we did to improve ourselves.
My asthma bothered me a lot less nowadays, too. Maybe it was the weight, or maybe it was a diet that lacked junk food. Maybe it was the fitness. I was in the best shape I’d been in in a long time. Madison, too. She carried water and fuel and food. She drove the snow machine like a champ.
The best part of our day was reading to the twins in the evening. Where before, we would settle in to watch TV, now we would gather together and read. It didn’t matter what we read. We had gone through numerous volumes of Dr. Seuss, but we also read them the gardening book, the Bible, Master & Margarita by Bulgakov. Anything and everything. When you read every day, you go through a lot of books.
Getting Ready for Spring
We built our greenhouse using a big roll of Visqueen and two by fours. We built an inner shell and an outer shell to use the air gap as an insulator. We initially heated it with the kerosene stove burning fuel oil. We vented with a heat-driven fan and we used a two-foot-thick bed of wood chips and sawdust to help keep the heat steady. Once that was done and the wood chips heated, we removed the kerosene stove. There was no sense in poisoning our young plants with the toxic air.
I ran the generator so we could use an electric heater in the greenhouse. This meant that I had to run the generator every few hours. Madison would stay up later and I’d get up early. It wasn’t optimal, but it was all we had until it got warmer outside.
We planted seeds for tomatoes, peppers, and green beans. When the time came we’d plant cabbage, kale, and other greens. In order to hedge our bet, we planted triple the number of seeds we wanted to get in plants. Just in case.
With the greenhouse, one of us had to stay home at all times. The twins would be really put out if they didn’t get their weekly trip to the resort, so Colleen and Madison took them. They traveled light, pulling only one sleigh with the emergency gear (tent, sleeping bags, food, fuel). I kept the dogs with me at home.
This also gave me some freedom to “shop” for things that we would need come summer. A truck with a trailer would be nice. Maybe even something like a backhoe, as digging an outhouse was one of the first things on my agenda when the ground thawed.
I saw twelve-hour workdays ahead. The twins needed to learn how to weed the garden. Well, maybe they were still too young for that. They would get their chance soon enough. We couldn’t build the garden at our house. There simply wasn’t enough water. The closest viable garden spot was a half-mile away.
It seemed like no matter what I needed to do, there were moving parts with missing pieces. I needed to get an inventory of what was available for us to use. I better pick up the pace of inventory management.
Not working was getting to be like a real job.
The First Medical Emergency
Madison, Colleen, and the twins headed out in the morning for Chena Hot Springs. They had to slow as the warmer weather was creating some icy conditions with the snow where we had hard-packed it on previous trips. They took a break halfway, but kept it short as they didn’t have the dogs with them. A quick bathroom break, stretch the legs, helmets back on, and away they went.
They arrived at the Community a little after ten. When the engines turned off, there should have been the hum of a water pump, dogs barking in the distance, but there was more. A woman screamed hysterically. A man howled in pain. With the twins in their arms, Madison and Colleen raced past the lodge to see a small group gathered around someone lying on the ground.
It was Lucas. Madison couldn’t see what the problem was, but she was sure she didn’t want the twins to see it. Colleen calmly handed Aeryn to Madison and shouldered her way in to see what was causing the pain.
Blood flowed freely from Lucas’s mangled arm. Amber was attempting to put a tourniquet on. Emma was jumping up and down, screaming uncontrollably.
In a voice that Madison had not heard before, Colleen pointed at Emma. “Get her out of here!”
In a completely different tone, she talked to Amber. “I’ll do it. I used to be a nurse. Put a half-turn as you tie it off, then it is easier to tighten.” They had a thin flashlight that Colleen took and used to tighten the tourniquet. The blood flow slowed right away.
Madison was struggling with the twins and Emma. The twins were confused and afraid. Emma was still hysterical. Holding both twins, Madison kicked Emma in the leg.
“Get me some rags, we need to cover the wound.” A t-shirt materialized and Colleen tied that around a vicious gash that started at Lucas’s bicep and ended at his forearm. The muscle and tendons were cut to the bone. Lucas moaned in anguish, and his eyes rolled back into his head.
“What happened? Look at me,” Colleen ordered as she cupped his face with her hands. “What happened?” she said louder.
The intelligence behind his eyes returned and he focused on Colleen. “Fixing the pump … exploded on me ... still under pressure. I’m sorry.” He started to sob and gag. Colleen turned him onto his good side as he threw up. He convulsed as the pain from moving his arm hit him. He screamed once more and passed out.
“Let’s get him inside. Now, ladies!” Amber reached around his chest from behind and hauled him partially to his feet. Colleen picked up his legs. Jo had arrived, and she held his injured arm. They shuffled toward the back door to the kitchen.
They were putting him on the food preparation counter when he came to. He started thrashing about and Amber lost her hold on him. His arm was pulled from Jo’s grasp. The tourniquet loosened and blood spurted.
“Stop it!” Colleen roared right into Lucas’s ear. He settled down long enough for them to get him onto the table. Jo twisted the flashlight to tighten the tourniquet.
Endure (End Times Alaska Book 1) Page 14