by Megan Crewe
“We’d be okay once it gets dark,” Tobias said. “I—I’ll go have a look at the trees around here. If we can get some spruce branches, or elder, they don’t make as much smoke.”
“Really?” Gav said. “Wood’s wood, isn’t it?”
Tobias shrugged, his head low. “We had a whole section on how to evade the enemy if you’re stationed outdoors. I saw it with my own eyes.”
Within an hour, we had flames dancing in the fireplace, wafting a thin heat and tangy spruce scent through the living room. We all huddled close, taking turns warming cans of soup at the edge of the hearth. The feeling slowly prickled back into my feet.
“We should be careful how much we’re eating,” Leo said. “Now that we’re going to be on the road longer than we expected.”
“We can’t cut back too much if we’re going to have energy for walking,” I pointed out.
“Army rations are pretty filling,” Tobias said. “That’s what they’re made for. I’d figure we’re good for another ten days.” He paused. “It’s water you’ve got to worry about more. We could melt some snow here to fill up the empty bottles before we go.”
After we’d eaten, he and Tessa and Leo went out with the three pots we found in the kitchen, and came back with heaps of snow. “Careful,” Tobias said as he set his by the edge of the fire. “We’ve got to pour a little water in first. Otherwise—you’d never believe it—the damn stuff can burn the bottom of the pot.”
“Are we just going to sleep here?” Meredith asked. “On the floor?”
“We could bring the mattresses down from the beds upstairs,” Tessa said. “Make it more comfortable.”
Tobias nodded. “We’ll stay warmer that way too.”
Tessa and Meredith kept an eye on the melting snow while the rest of us headed upstairs. Gav and Leo took the queen mattress out of the master bedroom and hauled it down while Tobias and I grabbed the double down the hall. I tried not to notice the knickknacks on the shelves, the books on the bedside table.
By the time we’d pushed the mattress to the top of the stairs, sweat had broken out on my forehead. “Better take your coat off if you’re getting hot,” Tobias said. “When your clothes get damp, it’s a lot harder to keep warm later on.”
I nodded, and dropped the coat over the railing so I could pick it up below. “You know a lot about surviving in the cold.”
“I’ve been through training,” he said. “In Canada. Wouldn’t have lasted long if I didn’t pick up a few things.”
I looked at him then—really looked at him, for the first time since he’d told us what was going on in the harbor, when all I’d been able to see was yet another soldier who should have been protecting us and failed. He was only a few years older than I was. He had parents out there, maybe brothers or sisters, friends—people he didn’t know whether they were alive or dead. He’d had to leave the one certain shelter he had. Training or not, some part of him must have been scared. And he was still here.
“Thanks,” I said. “For helping us, with everything. I hate to think what a mess we’d be in without you.”
His head jerked around with a start. Then his stance relaxed and he gave me a shy smile. “Just doing what I know how to do.”
As the rest of us lay out the blankets, Tobias turned on the transceiver radio he’d insisted we bring and took it out onto the front steps. Ten minutes later, he came back in, sprinkled with snow and shaking his head. “I’m not picking up any signals tonight.”
We slept the same way we had in the truck, each wrapped in a blanket of our own and then squeezed together in a row under the unzipped sleeping bags. My body balked at the cramped positioning for just a few minutes before exhaustion took over, and I drifted off with Gav’s breath by my ear. It hardly felt like any time at all before the early morning sun streaming through the window woke me.
The fire had dwindled to embers, but the room still held a little warmth. The muscles around my middle throbbed when I sat up, from pulling the sled yesterday. I squirmed out from between Gav and Meredith, who were starting to stir, and went to check on the vaccine.
The temperature in the cold-storage box looked fine, but the freezer packs were getting sloshy. I took three of the four out and set them in my sled, hoping they’d refreeze while we walked that day, and broke a bunch of icicles off the house’s windows to refill the box.
By then the others were up. We gulped down a couple tins of canned peaches between us and gnawed on granola bars while we packed the sleds. As we carried them back outside, Meredith gave an excited yelp. “I see a car!” She gestured to a shape buried in the snow several driveways down the road. “Do you think there are keys in the house?”
“Can’t hurt to check,” Gav said. We all marched over. While he and Tobias started wiping down the car, Tessa and I climbed the front steps. The door opened easily.
“If you were a car key, where would you be?” I said.
Tessa scanned the hall. “No key rack. No hall table. Maybe a drawer in the kitchen?”
A pair of wooly mittens lay in a basket just beyond the shoe rack. I picked them up so I could replace Meredith’s damaged pair. My heartbeat kicked up a notch as we crept farther into the house. What I’d said to Tobias before was true—the fact that the car was still here meant the owners probably were too. The fact that they hadn’t complained about us barging into their house meant, if they were, they were dead. But thankfully we came upon nothing except a dusty counter, a coffee machine with the pot still a quarter full but ringed with ice, and, in the third drawer Tessa checked, a car key.
“Got it!” she said, sounding so triumphant I couldn’t help grinning as we hurried outside.
The car, an old maroon sedan, was pretty much unearthed. Tessa unlocked the door and climbed inside. Beside me, Gav shifted restlessly. The engine coughed, sputtered, and then rose into a steady rumble. Meredith let out a little cheer.
Tessa backed it up two feet, three, and then the wheels started spinning against the snow pushed up in their wake. My heart sank. She eased the car back and forth a few times, making only a few inches of progress, then cut the engine and got out to study the problem.
“The snow’s too deep,” Leo said, stating what we were all realizing. “We’d have to shovel a path right down to the freeway.”
And then we’d only be okay as long as part of the road was just ice or shallow snow. We could hardly count on that.
“So we’re going to need something bigger,” Tessa said. “Like the truck.”
“It’s not going to work?” Meredith said, a tremble in her voice.
“Looks like no.” I rubbed her back. “Don’t worry, Mere. We’ll just have to wait until we find one that’s better equipped for the weather.”
As if we hadn’t been lucky just to find this car and its keys. I glanced to the west, the way we were headed, and Ottawa seemed to shrink far away into the distance.
“Then we’ve got some more walking to do,” Gav said, reaching for his sled. “Better get started.”
ten We walked for two days, stopping briefly in the few towns we passed and coming up with nothing we could drive. My stomach, hips, and legs perpetually ached. Conversation dwindled, and then stopped almost completely.
On the second afternoon we achieved a minor victory, finding a shelf of canned food in a garage, as well as a spool of steel wire. As we walked on, Leo used it to demonstrate the snare-making techniques he’d learned from his dad. “I hated the hunting trips he planned more than anything,” he said, twisting the wire. “But they did pretty much save my life getting back to the island. If we’re lucky, we can catch a few rabbits.”
When we stopped for the night at a lone farmhouse a short distance off the freeway, Leo, Gav, and I set the six snares around the closest field. I woke the next morning to Gav sliding out from under the sleeping bag beside me. Only a faint glow of dawn light lit the room.
“Up already?” I murmured.
“I want to check the snares before everyone’s a
wake,” he said. “So they don’t hold us up heading out.” My eyelids still felt a little heavy, but I suspected I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. I slipped away from Meredith to join him.
The sun was just starting to rise beyond the trees, but I could already feel there’d been a shift in the temperature. The snow felt mushy under my boots as we circled the house. Somewhere to the left, I heard a faint trickle of melt water.
It wouldn’t last. January melts never did. As soon as the temperatures fell again overnight, the ground would be slick with ice formed over half-melted snow. We’d have to walk even more cautiously tomorrow. Drew had broken his wrist on one of those days—eight years ago, but I could still remember the crack of bone when his feet had slipped out from under him on the front walk.
Drew, of course, had turned it into an opportunity. He couldn’t write properly with the cast, so he’d talked Dad into “lending” him the old work laptop that mostly sat in Dad’s study gathering dust. When the cast had come off, Drew had headed off any request for the laptop’s return with the open audacity he’d possessed even at ten years old. “Wasn’t it nice not having me and Kaelyn fighting over the living room computer anymore?” he’d said, and Dad had let him keep it.
My chest tightened up at the memory. Drew was so smart. So determined. It wasn’t totally crazy for me to think he might still be alive, was it?
“Nothing here,” Gav said, bending to tug an empty loop of wire from beside the wooden fence that ran along the field. “Well, we might as well hold on to them.”
He eyed the snare for a second longer before hooking it over the sleeve of his coat.
“You okay?” I asked as we tramped toward the next.
“Yeah,” he said. “Just . . . a little impatient, I guess. I miss the truck.” He laughed, but it sounded strained.
“Me too. At least we haven’t run into that woman in the green van again.”
“No kidding.” He pulled up the second empty snare and looped it over his arm with the first. “It’s funny,” he said after a moment. “I keep thinking about how much I wanted to get off the island before. Have some long road trip with Warren, see the whole country and all the things I was missing. Figure out where I fit in. But then, this virus comes, and . . . it’s all the same now. Everything’s screwed up, everywhere.”
A lump rose in my throat. “Gav,” I said, quietly.
“And it turned out the one place I could make a little difference was right there on the island,” he went on. “Who would have thought?”
“You’ve been amazing,” I said. Could he really not know that? “And it’s not going to stay like this. If the vaccine works, if people can stop getting sick, we can start fixing everything.”
“Yeah,” he said. He wrapped his gloved hand around mine and held it as we continued our circuit of the field.
The next three snares were undisturbed too. “I was hoping we’d get something,” Gav said.
“When Leo was traveling back, it was still fall,” I pointed out. “Most of the animals are hibernating now.”
“Right.” He paused as we headed toward the last snare. “You and him . . . You weren’t ever anything more than friends, were you?”
“What?” I said, my face going hot, grateful for the scarf that hid my cheeks. Had he seen something, overheard something? But what had there been to see or hear, really? The fact was, I could say with complete honesty, “No. We’ve always been just friends.”
Gav stopped, sliding his arms around me. “I’m sorry,” he said, his head bent beside mine. “I don’t know why I was thinking about it.”
“It’s okay,” I said. As if I could prove it, I nudged down our scarves and kissed him. His lips were dry but warm. He held me close for another few seconds, and I wished we were anywhere but in the middle of an empty field, hundreds of miles from anything familiar. Somewhere we could be our normal selves, if only for a moment.
When Gav drew back, the longing in his expression suggested he was thinking the same thing. A tingle shivered over my skin. But he just cocked his head and gave me a grin that was a little less strained, and said, “We’d better finish up before the others send a search party.”
As we came up on the last snare, I spotted a furry shape beneath the bush where we’d set it. “Hey!” Gav said, hurrying forward. I followed, slowing when I made out a long slender tail.
“That’s not a rabbit,” I said. I forced myself to take the last few steps to Gav’s side.
It was a cat, a brown tabby, its scrawny body rigid, head twisted where it’d struggled to free itself from the snare. I closed my eyes. From the looks of it, the cat might have died soon anyway, thanks to starvation or the cold. We might even have done it a kindness. What made my stomach lurch was the thought of what we might do with it now.
“Doesn’t look like it has that much meat on it,” Gav said uncertainly. I could feel him watching me. And suddenly I wanted to hit something. This was all because of the virus. The virus had stranded us here with no heat or food or people to help. The virus had put us in the position where we had to consider eating what had once been someone’s pet. I hated it. I hated it so much.
There was no way I was letting it beat us, no matter what it took.
I made myself shrug, exhaling my anger. “A little bit of meat could be the difference between making it one more day and . . . not making it, right?”
“True.” He crouched down by the bush. “I think it’s mostly frozen. We could pack it with snow so it stays that way, not use it unless we have to.”
I nodded. “Let’s get a bag. I don’t want Meredith seeing it.”
We didn’t speak, walking back to the house, but just outside the door, Gav turned and touched my face. Tears sprang into my eyes. I blinked, willing them away.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m fine. I just want to get out of here.”
“That makes two of us,” Gav said with a crooked smile.
He went back for the cat with a bag, and stashed it in the middle of his sled. We didn’t mention it again.
The six of us didn’t reach the next town until the sun had arced across the sky and started slipping back down toward the trees. Tobias spotted it first, pointing to a ripple of snow-patched rooftops in the distance. Clouds were bunching along the horizon above them.
Without speaking, we all picked up our pace to cross the last few spans of field. The warmth had let us open our jackets and loosen our scarves as we walked, but the soggy snow dragged at the sleds. Every muscle between my feet and my waist burned.
The town looked about the same size as the one where we’d lost the truck. I reached for Meredith’s hand as we marched down the first street we came to, our sleds bumping sides. The emptiness was almost comforting. I’d rather we were the only ones here.
We didn’t stop, but slowed to scan the laneways and side streets. On the first few blocks, we passed a couple cars, but both of them were obviously too small. Then I noticed a black pickup truck at the back of a driveway, its bed full of half-melted snow.
“You think that’d do it?” I asked. “We might as well try,” Gav said, his eyes brightening. “Let’s take a look.”
We tramped down the driveway together. Tobias tried the driver’s-side door. It opened, but he shook his head.
“Looks like someone already tried to hotwire it and didn’t know what they were doing,” he said. Frayed wires dangled beneath the steering wheel. “I don’t suppose any of you know how to fix that? ’Cause I don’t.”
Gav shook his head and kicked one of the tires.
“So we keep looking,” Tessa said calmly. “Sooner or later—”
She was interrupted by a low voice from the other end of the driveway. “Hey! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone over here!”
We spun around as footsteps thumped over the snow. A young man, tall and broad-shouldered, was lumbering toward us, sniffling and scratching a spot on his hip. His eyes flickered from us to the open door
of the truck, and narrowed. “What are you doing to Mr. Mitchard’s truck? You shouldn’t be messing with that!”
He barged toward us, his round face flushed, and I instinctively flinched back, grabbing Meredith’s shoulder. Tobias froze, going white. Leo shifted to Tessa’s side.
Only Gav went forward.
He charged between our sleds a second before the guy reached them, throwing out his arms. “Hold—” he managed. The guy looked like he might have stopped, but he slipped on the slushy ground and crashed into Gav.
They both tumbled over, a pained breath escaping Gav as the guy’s shoulder smacked his chest. I shoved Meredith behind me and ran to help, not entirely sure what I intended to do. The guy who’d come after us rolled to one side, wheezing and then coughing. Gav scrambled up and backward, staying between him and us. He waved me back as I caught up with him. I ignored the gesture.
“He’s sick,” I hissed. “Your scarf!”
Gav’s hand leapt up. He tugged his scarf back over his lower face. Leo and Tessa came up behind us. Tobias hovered by the truck, staring at our attacker as if transfixed.
It wasn’t the guy he was afraid of, it occurred to me. Of course not. It was the virus. The enemy all his army training couldn’t prepare him to fight.
“Man,” the guy said, pushing himself up onto his knees. His jeans were soaked through from the melting snow, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Whoa, I’m dizzy now. Why’d you do that? I just wanted to see what you were doing.”
“Matt?” a voice called. A second figure appeared at the end of the driveway: a young woman, slender and delicate-looking in her puffy coat. She blanched when she caught sight of us and hurried over, covering a sneeze with her gloved hand.
“He ran at us,” Gav said as she took the guy’s arm to help him up. “We’re just passing through—we don’t want to hurt anyone. Just don’t want anyone hurting us, either.”
“I wouldn’t have hurt you,” the guy protested. “But you shouldn’t be getting into other people’s trucks. That’s just not right.”
“We were wondering if we could . . . fix it up for him,” I offered, wincing inwardly at the weak lie.