On the plus side, I thought, the Chinook would cause temperatures to be mild and frostbite and freezing wouldn’t be quite as much of a danger. Vehicles would start easily and pipes would not burst or freeze up. The down side, however, was that there was a serious risk of being completely snowed in… trapped… buried… I took long, deep breaths, trying to calm myself.
“Will we get snowed in?” Meg asked, reading my thoughts as usual.
“Nah,” I replied, fighting to keep my voice calm. “We’ll be fine.” Even as I said it, I realized I didn’t even know what ‘fine’ meant. What was fine when we were alone and civilization had, as far as we could tell, died?
“Well what should we do?” she asked casually. It was a simple question but I couldn’t think of an answer. What was there to do? Certainly there was nothing to be done, but what should we occupy ourselves with? We had to keep busy. It was never good to be idle too long in disaster situations. It allowed too much time to think; too much time to reflect on loss. We had to stay active; had to keep working.
I peered out through the window looking for tracks, movement or dark figures against the thick white snow. There was nothing out there that I could see. For the moment it seemed safe to go outside.
“Maybe we could find a plough?” I suggested, “Try to keep some main roads clear… We should definitely shovel off our little piece of sidewalk here; make sure we can get out.”
Meg shrugged. “Sounds good to me… wouldn’t want to keep the customers away,”
“We should keep the Jeep shovelled out enough to get out. Just in case.”
We managed to find and start a rusty old truck with a snowplough fitted to the front and laughed all morning as we sloppily cleared off the main street. It was rough going and we swerved and bumped around recklessly, gradually opening up a passable track.
There were sickening moments as we pushed aside or drove over a number of those creatures that had apparently laid themselves down in the street and become fully buried in snow. At first I hadn’t realized what was happening. The snow was so heavy that the creatures were indistinguishable by sight. We’d bumped over a few obstacles, but the snow was sticky and easily became packed into great ruts and mounds. It wasn’t until our second pass over the road that we’d noticed the brown-red stain in patches of snow or the grasping limbs and body parts that jutted out from the piled banks.
The warmth was causing them to move more freely but they seemed to have gone relatively dormant, deprived of smell, sight and sound by the thick, wet covering. We never saw any of them moving out on the street. None seemed to be out wandering aimlessly on stiff legs as they had done.
We noticed them struggle a little as the plough pushed them aside, but even those that were awakened, if indeed they’d been asleep, soon disappeared from view once more in the rising snow banks.
At last, the street was adequately cleared and the snow continued to fall in great white flakes. We decided to work on shovelling a portion of the sidewalk for ourselves. We took it in turns, one of us shovelling while the other stood watch, shotgun in hand.
The world had gone absolutely silent. The clouds and the snow in the air and on the ground dampened any sound and absorbed all echoes. It was stunning, eerie and remarkably beautiful to be alone in this white world.
I’d known such silence before, out in the wilderness, but it always remained a special experience. It felt like magic; like fantasy; like a dream. It was particularly surreal to experience it in the streets of a town. Megan, despite having lived in the quiet north, had never gone off into the wilderness for long, particularly in winter. I doubted she’d ever experienced silence so complete. For long periods she stared, her face slack, her eyes wide. “Beautiful” she murmured to herself again and again.
I decided to take the first shift shovelling while Megan kept a look out, her gun slung over her shoulder. I cleared a path to the Jeep, which remained packed with supplies and gear. It was hard work. Each shovelful of snow was heavy and sticky; separating reluctantly from the snow pack surrounding it and then again parting only with difficulty from the plastic shovel.
The day continued on like that, Megan taking a turn at shovelling every now and then. We were quiet and spoke little, soaking in the solace of it all. Without making any conscious effort, we’d been gradually making our way down the sidewalk toward our favourite steakhouse that sat like a shadow in the distance, its rough wooden façade barely visible through the heavy snowfall.
We hadn’t seen any of the things all day, aside from those we had ploughed from the street. Those that we’d unearthed seemed to have been recovered by the snow and perhaps had once more become dormant. It was good to know that frozen and deprived of their senses they became less of a problem. It was frightening to think, however, that under a thick blanket of snow could lay a creature that would awaken and attack without warning. We walked cautiously; realizing that beneath any mound could lay a dormant creature, hungry and relentless. We moved carefully but encountered none as we shovelled our narrow trail down the sidewalk.
The snow continued to fall throughout the day. Sometimes it tapered off to a thin sprinkling, the sky lightening so that the pale disk of the sun was almost visible. At other times, and more frequently as the day went on, the snowflakes were so thick that the entire world seemed to be washed in white and grey and we could barely make out the buildings around us. Though calm and unnervingly gentle, these could be some of the most dangerous moments to be outdoors.
It was easy to become lost and disoriented in a snowfall like this, when earth and sky seemed to have fused together and become one, the snow so thick in the air that it obscured everything that was not within arm’s reach. Points of reference for distance and direction disappeared in the suffuse light. It was like floating in a silent purgatory, the world below, above and all around existing as nothing more than a thick, soupy whiteness that stretched for miles, untouchable and immaterial. The lake at the end of the street was particularly vague. Everything toward that end of town had simply vanished. Nothing existed out there but a vast, endlessly white expanse. Many lives had been lost as the result of conditions like these, even with functioning search and rescue services, even with the technology to navigate by instrumentation rather than sight.
As we ploughed vainly through the snow, I recalled one news story from the previous winter about a young girl who had somehow become lost in a blizzard. Her mother had gone out to search for her. Miraculously, the girl had managed to find shelter in an old shack out in the middle of a farmer’s field. The mother was found days later by search and rescue dogs, entombed within a snowdrift. They said she’d looked peaceful, as though she’d simply been sleeping, which of course is exactly how one would expect to find someone who’d died of exposure. They say hypothermia, in the end, feels like falling asleep. Most people don’t even feel cold in those last slow moments when the body begins to shut down. Many survivors report feeling warm and comfortable, as though falling asleep in bed.
I returned from my thoughts to realize that I’d lost sight of Megan. The snow was falling more thickly than ever and I could barely make out the shadowy wall of buildings just feet away to my right. I looked around frantically, wondering how we’d become separated. I swore at myself for getting distracted, for daydreaming while I should have been alert. I left the shovelling and jogged back down the recently cleared sidewalk.
Already the path was dusted with snow, the accumulating deposit thickening quickly to an inch and then two as I made my way back. I rolled my eyes. The shovelling had, of course, been primarily a way to pass time, a way to keep active and busy. Ensuring that we did not become trapped had only been a secondary purpose. All the same, the futility of our work struck me as the path we’d just shovelled soon became mired in ankle deep snow where only half an hour ago there had been clear pavement.
At last, I noticed tracks headed back toward the shop. There was a round indentation in a snow bank where it looked to me as
though Megan had sat down for a while before making her way back down the sidewalk. Her shotgun sat beside the seat in the bank, the barrel pointing up, the stock half submerged. I picked it up. Perhaps she’d needed to use the bathroom.
It was just as well I was heading back, I realized. Given the volume of the snowfall, it would soon be necessary to shovel out our doorway again and clear a new path to allow the Jeep an exit.
Sure enough, as I approached the shop I saw that the snow around the doorway was easily a foot deep. Meg’s tracks veered toward the door and I could see the arc of where the door had swept aside the newly fallen snow as it had opened and shut.
“Meg?” I called into the dim room.
“Here,” she replied, “Sorry, meant to come back sooner.”
“You should have let me know,” I growled admonishingly.
“I did. I thought you said ok. Told you I was leaving you the gun.”
“Oh,” I replied. I couldn’t remember. Perhaps I’d been lost in my daydreaming. “Sorry. Well no sense in going on, anyway. It’s falling too quickly. We’re going to have to shovel out the door again soon.”
“Looks that way,” Megan nodded. “How ‘bout a hot drink and a bit of lunch?”
“That’d be good,” I nodded. I realized that I had absolutely no idea what time it was. The light seemed to have dimmed outside, but that didn’t mean much in this sort of weather. With everything coloured in monochromatic shades of white and grey, I’d lost all sense of time. There was no direction, no larger world anywhere out there, just my own little bubble of white.
“It really is beautiful… so peaceful,” Megan murmured, following my gaze out the window.
“Mhmm,” I grunted in vague agreement. I glanced at my watch.
“It’s 3:00,” I said, half to myself. “The sun will be going down soon.”
“The day really flew by,” Meg replied. “I wish we could have a hot bath in here,” she said, pouting a little. “I’m cold and wet and I don’t feel much like walking across the street and back. Especially after last time.”
“Don’t blame you,” I said. It was definitely getting darker now and the snow was falling even more thickly than before.
“This place has the perfect stock of supplies, but maybe once the weather gets better we could find a more comfortable place to live.”
“I wouldn’t say no. I’m already getting a little tired of camping cots.”
“I wonder if there’s a bin or something we could use as a bath,” I thought aloud.
“What about that?” Meg said, pointing up at a wall. I followed her gaze to a dusty blue plastic children’s swimming pool that had obviously been hanging on the wall since last season. I hadn’t noticed it before.
“Sure, why not?” I replied, shrugging. “Let’s get it down.”
After some scrabbling and a thick rain of dust that stung our eyes as we jostled the pool down, we managed to set up a reasonable bathroom. Megan worked on wiping the pool down and started some water heating while I set up a large tent for privacy and to help hold in the heat and steam for the bather. We set it up toward the back of the shop near the large cleaning cupboard where there was a large trough-like sink and a floor drain. I positioned the pool inside the tent and began filling it with hot water by the bucketful while Megan placed some lanterns and lit a soft smelling candle. Technically speaking, it was fairly dangerous to have an open flame inside a tent but I decided to let it go. There would be plenty of water inside to counter a fire if one started. At last everything was ready and I was quite impressed with the result. It was rustic and temporary, but the spa we’d set up was quite passable.
“What I could really use is a nice bubble bath. I think I’ll go find some bath bombs tomorrow. Might as well pamper myself, no one else is going to use them now.” she added zipping the tent up as she began to undress.
“Ooooh,” she moaned appreciatively as she slipped into the water. “This is perfect. Exactly what I needed.”
I sat nearby trying to avoid looking at the alluring silhouette that flickered on the tent’s walls in the lantern light. All my efforts were in vain, however and I kept catching myself watching the shadow image of Megan as she poured steaming water over her long hair.
“We should have thought of this sooner,” Megan purred. “This is miles better than that musty hotel room. Can you imagine what we would have said just a few weeks ago if someone had told us that a hot bath in a kid’s swimming pool would be a luxury?” she giggled. I smiled. It was hard to believe.
“I’m just going to find you a towel,” I said, standing up. I was eager for something to do and wanted to force myself to turn away from Megan’s silhouette.
I wandered around the clothing racks feeling strangely as though I was browsing for a deal in the dim lantern light. Once or twice, I caught myself absently checking price tags.
I managed to find a warm fleece bathrobe but it looked to be a little on the short side. Not wanting her to be uncomfortable, and also not wanting to add to my own temptations, I grabbed a set of non-revealing warm thermal sleepwear along with the robe. I also collected some thin but absorbent microfiber towels and a couple of large beach towels left over from the summer season.
“I’ll just leave these here for when you’re ready to get out,” I mumbled to Megan, who was now soaking quietly in the pool.
“Actually, while you’re there,” she said, her voice still low with pleasure and relaxation, “could you do me a big favour?”
“Sure, what do you need?”
“I’d love a glass of wine… if it’s not too much trouble,” she added hastily.
“ ‘course,” I replied. I poured out a glass and stood for a moment by the door to the tent, trying to decide how best to get the glass in to her.
“Um, here you go,” I said placing it on the ground and turning my back to the tent.
“Thanks so much,” she said, splashing a little as she lifted herself up. “Just pass it in.” I heard the tent unzip a little way and glanced back to see her arm reaching out. I lifted the glass into her hand, forcing my eyes not to peer in through the opening.
“There you go,” I said briskly once she had hold of it. I turned back and puttered around the room, trying to think of something I could do. It occurred to me that I hadn’t heard the tent zip closed again.
She’s really not making it easy, is she? I thought to myself in frustration. I hadn’t anticipated quite how literally she had meant it when she’d said ‘challenge accepted’ after our relationship talk. Why does she want me so badly anyway?
Well it’s not as though there’s anyone else around, I replied to myself. What’s the harm? You both want each other; there’s no one else left. You’re just making everything so much harder by fighting it. It’s going to happen anyway and you know it.
Maybe, I replied to myself, maybe but not yet, not now.
Why the hell not? What’s the point? All these people dead and we both managed to escape with our lives and you’re going to waste hours or days or weeks, all of it borrowed time…
That’s the point. We only have each other. What if it gets awkward? What if it turns out we don’t care for each other or worse, what if one of us falls in love but the other doesn’t? What if something happens and she gets pregnant? What the hell happens then?
Take precautions.
Accidents happen. It’s not that simple.
Deal with it when you get there. You’re the only two people left. The time of careful planning, of living by society’s expectations, of living for some distant future… that’s all over now. We’re back to the Stone Age. Back to living for today and that’s it. You could both be dead tomorrow. Odds are you’ll be dead soon.
“Want to use the bath?” Megan asked, interrupting my internal dialogue.
“Nah, I’m good,” I replied.
“You sure? It’s lovely. We can warm it up. Can you hand me a towel?”
I sighed in resignation and walked over to
the tent. Several inches of the unzipped door hung open limply and I could see Megan’s face, framed by shining wet hair, completely at ease as she leaned back against the pool wall, her eyes closed. My eyes travelled down her soft neck to her pronounced collarbone. There were no thoughts in my head; there was no resistance to the course my eyes were following.
Suddenly, Meg’s eyes snapped open and a mischievous smile played on the corners of her mouth. Her eyes sparkled knowingly and she made no effort to move or cover herself. I blinked in embarrassment my gaze flicking instantly away from her to the towels and clothes that lay on the ground just outside the tent. I grunted wordlessly.
“Any luck finding a towel or should I just air dry in front of the heater?” Her voice was filled with self-satisfied mirth, sardonic sweetness and over-the-top innocence. I wanted to tell her to air dry. I wanted to see the heater’s glow play on her skin. I wanted to see the beads of water sliding slowly down her back…
“Here,” I muttered instead, shoving the pile of cloth through the opening.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice still sugary and innocuous. “You’re so sweet.”
I should not have given her that robe, I realized in frustration. I should only have given her the pyjamas.
Sure enough, within minutes, she had emerged wearing only the robe, loosely tied around her waist, the material leaving a ‘v’ of her soft skin exposed from her collarbone to her navel, the dim light created deep shadows on her slightly exposed cleavage. As expected, the robe also left a good deal of her long, smooth legs uncovered. She brushed her still-damp hair with her fingers, sprinkling the curve of her breasts with droplets of sparkling water.
The Penance of Leather (Book 1): Ain't No Grave Page 17