“Maybe, but definitely not together with Puppy.”
“Then we need to work that out too.”
After unfolding the duffle tent, Lazlo abandoned the tent and the sled as unsuitable for three people and a dog. Instead, he arranged tarps, rope, blankets and sleeping bags around a central fire nestled against two boulders. Ernie and Christie slept against the boulders in sleeping bags so she could tend to him while Lazlo and Puppy nuzzled together under a tarp for mutual warmth. Roped taut near the ground, the shelter trapped heat. They slept soundly and warm and three of them awoke refreshed and lively. Ernie did not. He remained asleep in his bag long after sunrise until Christie, holding a cup of hot tea, nudged him awake. Lookin on, Lazlo knew Ernie’s distraught appearance would mean another full day on the Arctic Circle. Christie helped the man sit up and sip tea while they quietly talked.
Christie joined Lazlo while he potted the last of the fish and opened a tin of powdered eggs. “So what’s the prognosis?”
“He’s warm but that’s about all the improvement I see.”
“I don’t have to ask what that means, so we need to be prepared with more firewood and water… and we’ll need fresh food soon to feed three of us now.”
“Then Laz, why don’t you cut wood while I find good water. I’ll help you load if the wood isn’t close. We’ll both keep an eye out for game, how ‘bout?”
Taking different directions, Christie quickly found a good spring and filled the large pot and their canteens within an hour. Lazlo realized that the best wood had been gleaned by previous visitors. He spent the morning cutting and gathering enough for a day’s supply, then reluctantly concluded that another day in camp would be likely. After a quick meal he set out again. He cut deadwood all afternoon further and further from camp, never spotting game.
Lazlo offered to help Christie prepare dinner, but she declined saying, “Please talk to Ernie… he needs company.”
Lazlo began with the obvious topic , “Ernie, while tea is heating, please tell us how you arrived at that God forsaken place we found you.”
“Long story,” he replied without enthusiasm.
“Long evening ahead,” answered Lazlo. “Tell us what happened and there’ll be lots of tea.”
“I might be ill. I’m not feeling well.”
Christie said, “Talking may help get nausea off your mind.”
“Maybe, but I’m having a tough time coming to grips with this... this… I listened to news about week ago, an I’m still shocked. Family, all my friends, colleagues… are they all really gone… passed away?”
“Perhaps so,” replied Christie, “but my thoughts are for those who survive, such as you, Ernie. I think it would be best to start with your recent experiences and leave the rest be for now. Laz and I had to talk through our sadness before we could come to grips with reality. Relax and let gloomy thoughts drift from your mind.”
Christie’s sympathy seemed to rouse Ernie somewhat. “Alright, but then you must tell me about yourselves.”
“You bet,” said Lazlo.
“I’m forty-five years old… and a limnologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service. For years, my duties have been about the waters of the Brooks Range and the North Slope. But I’m telling you this just to begin; careers don’t mean a thing anymore.
“Many weeks ago… I’ve lost track of time… three of us flew to Anaktuvuk Pass. We’d all heard about the spreading flu before we left, but we were too busy to pay attention. It was our final field trip on a three-year project to study the tributaries of the John River.
“The work was to last ten days or so, and then we would float downriver all the way to Bettles where we would meet a Service floatplane to pick us up. We’d done that many times without a problem. It was a beautiful trip, usually…in the midst of fall colors... the bearberries and such. But as we finished our last creek and were ready to head out, an early storm hit us… a real blizzard for that time of year.”
“Sounds like we all experienced the same storm,” interrupted Lazlo.
“With the first clear day, we found our world had changed to winter. Snowdrifts and ice obscured our way out. Conditions were terrible. Drifts and slides blocked the trail while the creek flowed around our feet. We plodded two full days to reach the confluence with the river. That morning, we consumed our last regular meal, apart from trail crackers. We tried using our radio to raise colleagues on duty. We got no reply. We had used that location every trip to tell our bush pilot when to expect us.
“So, we decided to go on to Bettles. When we reached the Allen River, we stopped to camp, and there things turned for the worst. We found two native families at a fish camp drying the last of their salmon for the season. They told us one of the men drove an ATV load of fish to town, but when he returned, he was sick. Both families were sick by the time we arrived. It was awful. They’d brought their kids and the parents became too sick to care for them, so we tried to help.
“None of us knew dying of that flu would be so ghastly… but we couldn’t just walk away from crying children, sick and helpless as they were. But our help didn’t matter. By morning, every one of them died, and my two companions were sick. The next night, they both died. Not a damned thing I could do any more than with the kids… all choking and gasping for air to the last.
“The next morning, I was so spooked that I just covered their bodies with spruce boughs and left for Bettles in their ATV…”
Christie interrupted, “You didn’t have any asthma-like symptoms yourself?”
“No… nothing at all. I never got sick. When I arrived in town and looked around, I couldn’t find anyone left alive. Long ago I’d been given a key to the Ranger Station near the airport, so that’s where I ended up… sleeping on the floor on cardboard boxes. Thank God the place was still heated.
“In the morning, some local guy pounded on the door even though it was a public building and wasn’t locked. When I opened the door, the man backed off standing about twenty feet away and identified himself as some sort of constable. He asked if I’d been sick. I told him that I hadn’t, that I had been on official business and explained what had happened to the two families and my companions.
“I expected sympathy… at least some help, but he didn’t care. He told me that all outsiders were to leave town immediately. I told him that’s just what I intended to do as soon as my airplane arrived. He told me that immediately meant right that minute and he patted his sidearm for emphasis. He was the last living person I saw before you found me.”
With the outrage, Ernie was warming up to the telling.
“Leaving Bettles meant I had a long trek across country to find help. I thought I might have better luck on the highway, so I set out in the ATV for the Alyeska Pump Station by the new ice road. When I got to the Koyukuk River, I tried crossing the ice bridge, but it hadn’t frozen properly and collapsed, dumping me in the river. I tried swimming with my pack and coat on. I’m not a strong swimmer and I damned near drowned. Got swept into some rocks, injured my ribs, and lost everything but the clothes on my back. Didn’t even save a bottle of water.
“When I reached the pump station, the place was deserted. A military transport plane was parked at the airstrip, so I climbed in and found a few dry clothes and a blanket or I wouldn’t be alive talking to you.
“While I was there, I scanned the radio and got a prerecorded broadcast. The news was just unbelievable. A billion people around the world were dead. But I guess you both know all that by now. Blamed the bat plague on some recombinant virus accident in some Pakistani lab… Damn! I guess it was bound to happen eventually… but like this! Imagine… the federal government has quit functioning. The President and most of Congress are dead… chaos and riots in the cities, no electricity and no help for anyone. I think we might be on our own… You hear anything different?”
&
nbsp; Christie was interested in the disease. “I’ve heard about riots and millions dead, but I haven’t heard anything about a lab accident. That’s one explanation, but it sounds more like a bureaucratic blame game to me. I think the more likely explanation is the bat flu evolved biologically somewhere in that region… and you seem to be genetically immune to the disease. Biological makes more sense to me if so many people have died but you survived. It was like a SARS virus so new to the world that it spread to everyone except a few people like you.”
“Ernie… please finish your story… what happened to you?” asked Lazlo.
“I found a crate of military meals in the cockpit of the transport, but I stupidly ate all of them in three days. I realized too late that the wolves and bears found all of the military food stockpiled outside on pallets. The pack returned every day sniffing around for more. The cockpit of the Hercules was safe from the wolves, so I used it for shelter and found this rifle inside.
“Days later, I got my rifle got wet, jammed with ice and I couldn’t clear it to work properly. I had no food. I thought it was the end of me… That’s when you found me walking down the road looking for something to eat. I’d been kicking around there for at least a week, maybe more.
“I used to think of myself as fairly adept in the field, so I’m embarrassed to admit to such incompetence. By then, I thought I might be the only man left alive. It wasn’t a thought to keep me plugging along. Thank God you found me, but now I’m wondering why I’m spared.”
“During a quiet moment that same thought washed through my own mind” reflected Lazlo, “until I met Christie. What was this new world going to need with an old oilfield rigger? So… I live on with the blessing of loving company.” Lazlo wrapped his arm around Christie as he said so. “Maybe we’ve been spared to start over again.”
Christie smiled warmly returning the affectionate gesture, “Just day by day.”
Their lanky companion reached for the pot of tea and grimaced with pain.
“If you’ll allow me, I’d like to look at your ribs,” said Christie. “I’m a nurse.”
“Really! Then everyone will be pleased you’re one who survived,” replied Ernie.
With Ernie grimacing after lengthy probing, she pronounced, “I think you might have fractured three ribs. One is inflamed and very tender. There’s not much I can do at the moment… maybe later when you can properly rest. I suppose I needn’t tell you that your entire chest is badly bruised.”
“My body isn’t the only thing bruised. My head suffered worse. It’s a relief to get some sleep without thinking I’m the last man alive.”
Christie blazed up the fire to ensure that he slept.
32
Talkeetna Lodge, October 17th. The morning of departure was bright, clear and warm, renewing Judy’s anxiety about leaving. The Talkeetna Lodge was such a splendid refuge and large enough to house a village. The lovely building should live on as home… but then there was the ravaged town without food.
Mac also had anxiety about leaving their forth refuge in less than a month. Fate seemed to be hurling them one way, then another without making sense.
The crude entrance blockade encouraged the miners to show off their alterations to the cat. Slowing to a crawl Tony maneuvered the cat centering it on the concrete block wall, then lowered the massive blade without touching the pavement. The cat smoothly and effortlessly opened an unobstructed path.
Taking the Spur road, Tony set a rapid pace causing the cat to bounce rhythmically on its tires until he slowed no faster than a man could jog alongside. The slower pace allowed his companions to see that every building along the road had been forced and plundered. They encountered no people, no game and no reason to stop.
Twelve miles down the road, Pappy called a halt in front of a building supply company which had been boarded up and appeared undisturbed. As a former patron, Pappy asked the miners to help check inside. Judy, Mac and the Captain remained on the bridge standing watch while Pappy and the miners forced an entry.
They returned pushing a flat lumber cart piled with coils of rope, wood cutting tools, lanterns, tarps and a sturdy oak chest for holding camp cookware. They had joined the disreputable gang of looters, apparently a hanging offense in Talkeetna.
At the intersection with the Parks Highway, they confronted the final days of the plague. Hundreds of abandoned, wrecked, and burned out vehicles were queued in three parallel rows, all facing north toward Denali. A hundred more crowded around the four corner parking lot, gas station and grocery mart.
From the cat bridge, Mac looked on speechless. Events were more than a month past, but casualties lay untended where they had perished. Everyday expectation of public order and assistance hadn’t materialized. The calamity might remain for decades to come before nature slowly scrubbed away the carnage. Desiccated corpses lay on the pavement in front of the grocery mart. None of the little band would go near a corpse, not knowing how close was safe. Gleaning food inside the mart had to be too risky.
The only route around the choked intersection lay through the adjacent visitor’s center. For the first time, Tony maneuvered the cat just as he planned from the first moment he saw the intersection. Avoiding a corpse, he lowered the vee blade and eased his way through the tangle driving all six wheels in low gear. A few moments of screeching metal and splintering glass took him through dozens of abandoned cars stuffed with personal gear. Watching from the cat perch, the churning possessions of so many vanished people was deeply imprinted upon Mac’s memory. What would become of humanity?
Detouring through the forest, Tony toppled spruce trees until the queue of abandoned vehicles dwindled and became sporadic.
Miles further on, Tony encountered a constructed quarantine blockade. A detached train of boxcars stood on a railroad crossing extending beyond the highway on both sides. Authorities had chosen the location using the Susitna River, several creeks and the rail crossing to block any bypass. A massive berm of boulders and river mud constructed at the crossing extended into the quagmire of meandering creeks and the river. Fortified guard posts built into the berm reinforced the blockade.
Tony’s machine was designed for rearranging terra firma so he nosed the big blade into the face of the berm making successive passes and sliding boulders aside until the cat easily passed through.
Avoiding cars queued far beyond the barricade, Tony chose the railroad bed. Riding with stiff suspension on railroad ties was worse than a washboard road. However the detour avoided hundreds of abandoned coffin cars strewn along the highway.
At a highway crossing Pappy had marked on his map, Tony halted. Willow-Fishhook Road ascended a mountain pass above Palmer circumventing the urban centers ahead on the Parks Highway. Pappy recommended the pass as a more sensible route considering the burnin’ and trashin’ described by the two boys. The shortcut into the Talkeetna Mountains had also attracted campers fleeing the calamity.
Tony was troubled by vehicles queued in both directions as far he could see. Pappy’s detour seemed impassible with so many vehicles obstructing the narrow road.
Scoping with binoculars revealed a grisly scene of death in a tree shaded meadow across the street. Hundreds of sleeping bags, pillows and blankets were spread about with bodies swathed in white bed sheets. Having found the only road to their haven blocked, refugees must have realized their families were about to perish, and sought solace together, short of their goal. The scene made sense in a ghastly way.
Disturbing conditions as gently as possible, Tony nosed the cat across the road and continued on the railroad bed toward the settlement of Willow.
The high bridge seats overlooking backyards brought reminders of everyday life. Brightly colored toys, stacks of firewood, vegetable gardens, and a child’s vinyl pool hinted at normalcy if one ignored the tarnish of neglect, and the unswept windblown detritus o
f fall. Peopled places everywhere were without people.
Near the edge of town, Tony halted to investigate an apple orchard behind a block fence. From the bridge, they could see a dozen trees with ripe apples. First inside the wall, Jack was surprised by the charge of a domesticated miniature pig. The porker had obviously escaped a fenced run labeled with an unlikely warning sign: “Pig Turd Alley.” Judy was surprised that the pig had survived at all. Perhaps a few of them were naturally immune to the disease as were people.
Jack shot the red-eyed porker, dressed and butchered the pig while the others picked ripe apples. Beyond the orchard, Pappy found a vegetable garden. The pig had only recently churned up tubers, and chomped leafy vegetable tops, but many tubers remained. He and Mac harvested all the radishes, carrots, onions and red potatoes they could find. The neighbor’s garden yielded even more. Harvesting the gardens tripled their fresh food supply. A convenient pile of home split firewood provided cooking fuel.
The afternoon had grown late. Tony asked, “Houston and other towns are comin’ up soon, so do we keep goin’ or call it a day?”
Pappy replied, “I wouldn’t want to camp in the midst of all that burnin’ and trashin’, so why don’t we pull off near a nice lake just ahead… find a cozy spot for the night.”
Nearby, the railroad tracks conveniently crossed under the Parks Highway adjacent to the recreation area at Nancy Lake. Tony spotted a lightly wooded hill far beyond the campground and cabins Pappy sought to avoid. He deployed his mechanical boom and the men raised the heavy army tent preparing for the night.
Dinner, of course, was pork roast together with fresh onions, carrots, and radishes plus Judy’s apple sauce for dessert. Following the splendid meal, Judy said, “Guys, let’s cure the remainder of the pork while we enjoy the night sky.”
Flight To Pandemonium Page 30