by Nathan Jones
First Winter
Book One of
Nuclear Winter
By
Nathan Jones
A continuation of the story in
the Best Laid Plans series
Copyright © 2017 Nathan Jones
All rights reserved.
The events depicted in this novel are fictional. The characters in this story are also fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is entirely unintentional. While most locations are real some creative license has been taken in describing them, and a few locations are entirely fictional.
Table of Contents
Best Laid Plans Recap
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Dramatis Personae
Best Laid Plans Recap
First Winter, Book One of the Nuclear Winter series, continues the events of the five books in the Best Laid Plans series, which in order from first to last are Fuel, Shortage, Invasion, Reclamation, and Determination. This recap is included for those who haven't had an opportunity to read Best Laid Plans, or would like to refresh their memory of the events that took place in that series.
Best Laid Plans centers around the town of Aspen Hill in Central Utah, after an attack on the refineries along the Gulf of Mexico leaves the US out of fuel overnight. This leads to a crisis few saw coming that affects the whole country and the world at large. The story largely follows the main characters Trev Smith, his cousin Lewis Halsson, and their friend Matt Larson.
Fuel begins at the time of the attack with Trev and Matt at college in Orem, while Lewis has a shelter on the outskirts of Aspen Hill where he's prepared for just this sort of disaster. While Trev leaves for Aspen Hill immediately, Matt decides to wait a week to see if things get better. Due to Trev's car running out of gas, followed by a minor injury, it takes him most of that week to get home.
Meanwhile Matt watches events spiral out of control in the cities and on campus around him and decides it's time for him to leave. On the way out the door he encounters fellow classmate Sam Hutchins, who's been unable to get back to her family in New York and is desperate to leave the city. She knows where he can find the gas to get home, and he agrees to take her with him.
Back home they find Aspen Hill facing the problem of refugees sent their way that the town doesn't have the means to support. The townspeople reluctantly agree to turn the refugees away. Meanwhile Matt is worried for his sister April and her family living up in Midvale who might also be refugees. He convinces Trev to help him go find them and bring them back to Aspen Hill, and the two set off on foot.
After encountering significant hardship and witnessing disturbing violence and signs of society collapsing around them, they reach Midvale to find that April's family has been moved to a nearby refugee camp. They manage to find them there, and with some effort bring them safely home.
While they were gone the Federal Emergency Task Force, or FETF, has rolled into town with a truck of supplies and a squad of soldiers under the command of Riley Ferris. Ferris has his own idea of how the town should run things, which includes rounding up everyone's supplies and seeing to it that the refugee camp that's sprung up outside of town is also provided for.
Upon returning to the shelter Trev discovers that Lewis has been caching their supplies to keep FETF from getting their hands on them. Shortly after completing their first cache Ferris and his squad show up and evict the cousins from the shelter, confiscating all their remaining supplies. Unwilling to stay in town while it remains occupied, Lewis suggests they take whatever supplies they can haul on a couple wagons and make for a hideout up in the nearby Manti-La Sal National Forest, on some land owned by the Halsson family. This concludes the events of Fuel.
Shortage begins with Matt's family dealing with trouble in Aspen Hill from FETF, as well as from a gang operating out of the nearby refugee camp led by a psychopath named Razor. Meanwhile the cousins have made it up to the hideout and are settling in to prepare for the coming winter: hunting, fishing, and gathering as much food as possible.
Not long after the cousins arrive they witness a refugee group on the nearby Highway 31 being stalked by a group of bandits who clearly mean to attack them. Trev convinces Lewis to help the refugees and together they attack the bandits, managing to kill or drive them off. Lewis is wounded in the fight and Trev drags him back to the hideout. Meanwhile Jane Mathers, leader of the refugee group, determines the highway is no longer safe and convinces her people to take smaller backroads out of the mountains, putting them on a path towards Aspen Hill.
After weeks of struggling to feed himself and his family Matt is surprised to discover Ferris and his squad preparing to leave. The people of Aspen Hill learn that the FETF administrator has already used up all the town's food and is taking what remains with him. His departure prompts Razor to attack the town storehouse trying to seize its supplies, killing the current Mayor in the process. Matt defends his family, including Sam, and the town, and ends up killing Razor. After that he's assigned to lead the town's defenders by the new Mayor, Catherine Tillman.
Winter sets in with mostly hardship and grief. Matt's family is surviving on food from a cache Trev donated to them, living in the cousins' abandoned shelter in their absence. During that time Matt proposes to Sam, and after a brief engagement marries her. He also encounters Jane's refugee group, cautiously welcoming them into town and allowing them to live in the Larson house when Matt's family moved to the shelter.
In the spring Mayor Tillman convinces Matt to seek out Trev and Lewis and see if they have any food they'd be willing to sell to a town that desperately needs it. The cousins have been surviving well in the mountains, and after a reunion they reluctantly agree to sell their cached food from the shelter, confident they'll be able to feed themselves based on their experience at the hideout.
The town gets to work planting crops and finding ways to survive long term as spring progresses. Sam announces that she's expecting a child, but that good news is overshadowed by disturbing reports that the Gold Bloc, a treaty of Eastern European and Asian nations that might have been responsible for the attack on the Gulf refineries in the first place, has invaded Canada and is moving to invade the weakened United States next. Trev is worried about his family, who last he'd heard were still in Michigan. They're right in the path of the invading forces, and might have trouble getting to safety on their own.
In the meantime Ferris returns. Over the winter he's turned his squad into a small army that's been raiding farther north and west, and now Aspen Hill's the next town in his path. In a tense confrontation Lewis manages to shoot Ferris, ending their planned attack. A young former soldier named Raul Gutierrez defects from the raiders and comes to Aspen Hill, hoping to make up for his crimes by defending the town. The raiders settle in for a siege, and while Lewis and Matt remain to help fight them off Trev sets off on his own on bicycle, undertaking a daunting trek to reach his family and bring them home. This concludes the events of Shortage.
Invasion begins with Aspen Hill coming under attack by the raiders. After fending them off Matt and Lewis learn that Randall Turner, form
erly the contracted police officer for Aspen Hill who left with Ferris last fall, now leads the raiders. When Lewis killed Ferris he came close to killing Turner as well, and the man has a serious grudge against the town. It's unlikely he'll just leave.
Lewis has been patrolling with Jane, and the two have become close. Over the course of the next few attacks they decide to get married, and since neither of them is particularly outgoing they decide to have a ceremony with just them, performed by Mayor Tillman. Lewis has been pushing for Aspen Hill's defenders to attack the raider camps to take pressure off the besieged town, and he finally convinces Matt and the Mayor to agree to it. He and Jane stage an attack on one camp, a diversion, while Matt leads a larger attack on the opposite camp.
The attack goes badly. Several people in Matt's team die, and his friend Chauncey Watson loses most of his leg to amputation. Furthermore the attack enrages Turner, who begins using missile launchers to bombard the town. He gives them an ultimatum to surrender. Instead Lewis plans another attack, this one successful, and the defenders wipe out the raiders completely.
Meanwhile Trev has been making his exhausting and dangerous trek to Michigan. Among the troubles he encounters along the way he finds a place called Newtown that's been built up around several massive grain silos. The town has enough food to feed themselves and anyone who comes to trade with them, and Trev is able to purchase supplies. He also remembers the place as a potential source of supplies for his family on the way back, as well as for Aspen Hill if they can find some way to travel hundreds of miles to get it.
As he gets closer to Michigan he discovers that people are fleeing south and the Gold Bloc invasion has already begun. Traveling carefully to evade capture by the enemy soldiers, who people are pejoratively calling blockheads, he manages to reach his family's home. He finds them already gone, although they left behind a cryptic message that only he'd be able to understand. They're headed for Aspen Hill, and promise to leave regular markers so he can follow them if he comes.
Trev follows the markers, only to find that they soon stop. After a brief search he makes camp, despairing about what might've happened to his family. In the night a blockhead patrol, also following the markers, captures him. He's taken to a prison camp on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where hundreds of thousands of captured Americans are being held.
There he receives a complete shock as he's being taken into the camp. His uncle Lucas Halsson, Lewis's dad, is the one who processes him. Lucas, his wife Eva, and their daughter Mary had been in Norway on sabbatical, getting in touch with their roots, when the Gulf burned. Lucas managed to talk his way into a position in logistics for the Gold Bloc military, and managed to get his family back to the United States traveling with the invading army.
With his uncle's help Trev is able to reunite with his family inside the camp. He's relieved to find that his mom and dad, Clair and George, and his siblings Linda and Jim are unhurt, although worried about their situation. Lucas can't pull any strings to get them out, so while they try to figure out what to do they wait as patiently as they can.
Then comes the Retaliation.
What remains of the United States government had been negotiating with the Gold Bloc this entire time, warning them that if they invaded the US would deploy its nuclear arsenal against targets in all Gold Bloc nations. The Gold Bloc perceived it as a bluff and ignored the warning and a final ultimatum, and nukes fly.
One of those nukes lands on a blockhead military camp not far north of the prisoner camp Trev and his family are in. He sees the mushroom cloud with his own eyes, and realizes they're in the fallout zone. In the resulting chaos Trev's family manages to escape the camp. Rather than mindlessly fleeing, however, they're able to steal a blockhead truck and drive west along the Upper Peninsula headed for home.
Back in Aspen Hill Matt and Lewis are shaken by the news of nuclear war obliterating over a billion lives in a matter of hours, with an even greater death toll to follow. Lewis is confident the town is out of the way of any fallout from the Gold Bloc's retaliatory nuclear strikes, but they face the specter of nuclear winter, and the surviving blockheads are continuing to invade the United States. This concludes the events of Invasion.
Reclamation begins with Trev and his family on their way back to Aspen Hill, expecting to be there in a matter of days. Along with taking the truck they took enough fuel to get them the whole way. However, Trev suggests that since they have a vehicle capable of carrying a lot of supplies, they should stop in Newtown to fill it up with grain Aspen Hill desperately needs. In spite of the risk the family agrees, and Newtown's Sheriff, Fred Vernon, welcomes them in and arranges for them to get everything they're looking for, paid for by a few one-ounce gold coins Lucas carried with him.
It turns out to be a trick. Vernon and several of his deputies rob the family at gunpoint and steal the truck, using it to flee south from the approaching blockheads. The family is left to purchase a few handcarts and wagons and continue towards home on foot, despairing of getting there anytime soon, if they make it there at all. Newtown's residents, including a woman named Deb Rutledge who Trev befriends, decide they have no option but to pack up and head south on foot following Vernon.
After days of wearily slogging towards home Trev's family sees an approaching convoy. It turns out to be United States military, and a sergeant named Ethan Davis invites the family to join his squad in their truck, packing their supplies in the foot space and atop benches and strapping one of the handcarts to the back. With this stroke of good luck they're able to make it most of the way back home, dropped off less than a day's walk from Aspen Hill.
Meanwhile Lewis has been tending the garden he and Trev planted, and he and Matt go after a stray herd of sheep and manage to capture it, gaining the town some much-needed livestock. On the way back with the herd he spots a beehive, and resolves to come back later to harvest its honey.
Lewis is overjoyed to find that not only has his cousin managed to return with his family, but that his own parents and sister are with them. During the joyous reunion he introduces his new wife, Jane, who's welcomed into the family. Matt's family, Jane's refugee group, and the Halsson and Smith families are all living at the shelter, and they turn their focus to surviving and prospering long term.
The peace doesn't last long. When Trev and Lewis go for the beehive Lewis spotted they encounter a scouting patrol from the US military led by Corporal Kyle Williams. Williams brings news that the military is gathering as many refugees as they can in the Utah and Colorado Rockies, intending to make a last stand there and hold the blockheads back. He's recruiting any volunteers willing to join the fight.
After some agonizing Matt and Trev lead two squads of Aspen Hill volunteers south to Huntington along Highway 31, while Lewis remains behind leading the town's defenders in Matt's absence. Outside Huntington Trev meets Sergeant Davis again, who's been assigned to hold the highway where it enters the mountains a short ways northwest of the town. Corporal Williams is also assigned there, and with the Aspen Hill volunteers and a number of new recruits they're responsible for holding back any attack that comes their way.
While guarding a canyon a short ways north of Highway 31 Trev's squad ambushes a blockhead truck rolling up the road past their position. It turns out to be Fred Vernon and his men, who've managed to escape the mess to the south and have come to to join the fight. Trev protests that the man is a thief and abandoned the people he was responsible for, but Davis chooses to recruit them anyway.
The Gold Bloc attack finally comes, as they watch tens of thousands of soldiers poor into the area around Huntington. Meanwhile Aspen Hill receives enough warning to evacuate up Aspen Hill Canyon into the mountains west of them, following the plan Lewis had drawn up for the eventuality. They're grieved about losing their town, especially when they watch enemy soldiers roll in and occupy it.
The blockheads attack along Highway 31, only to be turned back by a set demolition that drops a rocky hillside onto the road, leaving it
impassable. After a fierce firefight they retreat to Huntington to dig in and hold the area, searching for alternate roads up into the mountains. One of those roads is up Aspen Hill Canyon. Lewis has been given the detonator for another rigged demolition that will drop a cliff on the road, destroying it, but he wants to do as much damage as he can before doing so. When blockhead scouts come up the canyon he ambushes them and wipes out their patrol, which is enough of a warning to get them to leave the canyon alone for now.
The people of Newtown fleeing south have received news of another Gold Bloc invasion force coming north from Mexico. Stuck between two fronts they had no choice but to split up into smaller groups and try to hide from blockhead patrols until they could find a safe place to go. In spite of Deb's best efforts her group, exhausted and harried, are captured. This concludes the events of Reclamation.
Determination begins with Lewis leading a night raid on his own shelter, which the blockheads have occupied as a patrol post. He manages to kill dozens of them and steal several trucks full of supplies, which he brings back to the temporary camp the Aspen Hill residents have set up in the mountains. He brings some of those supplies down to the volunteers along Highway 31.
Matt has been assigned to guard a hillside south of 31, as well as do what hunting he can to feed his people and the main camp. He ambushes a squad of blockhead scouts and takes several prisoners. In the process he has a minor confrontation with his friend Pete Childress, who shoots a few of the enemy who are fleeing and surrendering. The young man is reassigned to camp, and eventually deserts and disappears.
Trev and his squad start out training recruits to get them ready to fight, but they're soon reassigned to patrol north of the highway, near where Vernon and his men are guarding the same canyon where Trev first ambushed them. The two groups have minor clashes, which come to a head when Trev leads a failed ambush against a blockhead patrol and loses several people, and Vernon refuses to come to his aid.