Nuclear Winter (Book 1): First Winter

by Nathan Jones

  Once he was gone Lucas took one of the boxes and did his own hefting as he inspected it. “Congratulations, son.”

  “Thanks.” Lewis shifted things around long enough to pull his dad into a one-armed hug. “However you managed to set up this deal, it means a ton.”

  His dad paused for a couple deep coughs into his elbow, then handed the box back and examined what remained of their reduced supply of precious metals. “I guess I'll get in line for browsing. There's a few other things I saw that I might be able to trade for.”

  “Good luck.” Lewis went in search of Trev, eager to get started with the reloading after so long planning and searching for what he needed.

  His cousin was shaking hands with Ned's bodyguard and pocketing something small enough to fit in his closed fist. As Lewis approached Trev turned and grinned. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “A whole lot of it,” Lewis agreed, grinning back. “Ready to make some bullets?”

  “Sure, I guess.” Trev glanced over at Deb, who was standing with April, Aunt Clair, and a few other women from the shelter group. “Let me go tell my girlfriend that her boyfriend's no fun and wants to spend the day playing with toxic metals and propellants instead of shopping.”

  That was another thing to be pleased about. Whatever issues Trev and the brown-haired woman had been dealing with hadn't gone away, but things seemed better between them. They were obviously getting more serious and finally willing to formally acknowledge their relationship, if still noticeably shy on intimacy.

  He clapped his cousin on the back. “Just tell her you'll give her some ammo as a gift to make up for it. Bullets are a girl's best friend.”

  For some reason Trev gave a surprised start and absently patted his pocket as if checking for his recent purchase. “I thought diamonds were.”

  It didn't take much for Lewis to put the pieces together there. Probably a good thing he was holding these boxes so he couldn't put his head in his hands. “You didn't.”

  Trev hunched his shoulders. “I know it's a grossly unnecessary luxury,” he admitted in a low voice, obviously not wanting Deb to hear. “But it was a decent price and I want to do this right.”

  Lewis sighed. “Well it's your business. I can try to appraise it for you if you want, or we can find someone who can.”

  “You think Ned cheated me?”

  “No. But it never hurts to be cautious.”

  His cousin gave him a doubtful nod, obviously experiencing buyer's remorse. Lewis felt a bit bad about that. “Just give me a second.”

  He watched as Trev went over and quietly spoke to Deb. As his cousin spoke the brown-haired woman nodded and grinned over at Lewis, giving him a congratulatory thumbs up. In just a moment Trev came trotting back over. “Okay, good to go. Unless you want to buy something else?”

  Lewis hesitated, then shook his head. “Nah. Nothing there I really need more than what I'd have to trade to get it. Most of what looks interesting Matt's already snatched up for the town.”

  “True. Besides,” Trev said as he hooked an elbow around Lewis's neck, starting them back towards the Halsson cabin, “once we start making serious money off this we can trade for stuff whenever we want, with something everyone will be willing to trade for.”

  “Preaching to the choir.” Lewis led the way to his room, where he'd already set up his reloading station and spent a bit of time making all the preparations he could without these final materials. Now that he had them he was ready to jump in with both feet.

  “Wow, and I thought my room was cramped with the new bed,” Trev said, squeezing around the carefully laid out equipment. “Jane doesn't mind having this in here?”

  “I asked her and she barely seemed aware that the limited space was an inconvenience.” Lewis began running his cousin through a tour of the space, even though he'd already shown Trev all the equipment on a previous occasion, then began a rundown on the process of reloading cartridges.

  As Trev listened he poked through the bins where Lewis and Jane had neatly sorted all the empty casings by caliber. Lewis trailed off when he noticed his cousin's attention settling on the smallest bin, with less than a hundred casings that were quite a bit bigger than the 5.56. Lewis joined him in front of it and picked up a handful.

  “You only have this many .308 shells?” Trev asked.

  “Yeah.” Lewis frowned as he rolled the light casings across his palm. “I should've been saving the brass all along, but I only started about when I decided to get into reloading. Horrible lack of foresight on my part. I've only got those to work with.” He lowered his voice. “And I'm down to my last 100 bullets, too. Jane has less than 50 herself. The town storehouse is also getting low on that caliber. We're seriously talking about switching to the AK-47s we got from the blockheads.”

  That made his cousin start with surprise. “150? You had so much starting out! And didn't you get some more from the raiders?”

  Lewis smiled humorlessly. “You use up a lot more ammo in combat than with hunting, and we've done a lot of fighting this year.” He jiggled the shells in his hand. “Jane's already agreed to switch to the AK and let me have the rest of what we've got. She insists that since my G3 is the better gun, I'm more familiar with it, and I'm a better shot with .308 anyway, it makes sense. That'll give me a little bit longer before I have to swap too.”

  He looked up and shrugged, putting the shells back in their box. “But you never know. Maybe I'll get a chance to trade. Or maybe I can keep up the reloading fast enough that we'll both be able to have enough when we need it. Assuming the shells don't inevitably get damaged, or wear down to the point they can't be reused.”

  Trev nodded. “It's a shame, though. Your .308s are like his and hers weapons for you and Jane. People might not realize you're a couple without the familiar fixtures.”

  Lewis snorted in amusement. “Well at least we've got plenty of 7.62 shells. You'll have plenty of reloaded bullets for your rifles.”

  “Silver linings, eh?” his cousin said wryly, clapping him on the shoulder. “Come on, let's get to work.”

  “Right. I've read up on all this and watched videos, but like with so many things I haven't actually done it. We'll need to figure some of it out no matter how good the instructions are. And with something like this it's really important we do it right.”

  Trev nodded emphatically. “You got that right.”

  Lewis returned the nod, thinking of the times his gun had misfired, sometimes near disastrously in combat situations. He guided Trev over to the bench, where they broke open the boxes of propellant and primers and got to work.

  * * * * *

  Before the Gulf burned a truck would deliver some or all of its shipment, the delivery almost always paid in advance electronically, and then it would continue on to its next stop or return to pick up another shipment for the next delivery.

  But when Ned packed up to drive off, after hours of festival-like browsing, haggling, and exchanging goods, his truck was just as full as it had been starting out. If not more.

  “Money definitely makes merchanting easier,” the trader said as he finalized the few major trades the town had made and watched his payment in goods being loaded up. “It's a lot easier to sell high, pocket the profit, buy low and fill your truck with another load of cheap goods to sell high elsewhere, then rinse, repeat and watch your wallet get thicker and thicker.”

  Matt could see that. It was a wonder the man was making any sort of profit at all with exchanged goods. Although he had picked up precious metals and jewelry from some townspeople in trade, as well as other valuable commodities that were smaller, lighter, and easier to store. “Does the business work like this?” he asked.

  Ned grinned. “As a merchant it's my duty after every deal to whine that I've literally been robbed and my family will starve in the streets. But to be honest I do okay. Enough to justify the time and fuel, and then some.”

  “Seems a bit precarious. One highway robbery and all your hard work goe
s to pieces.”

  The trader shrugged. “Welcome to life. That's why I stick to the roads the military has confirmed are safe and under their protection, and only visit properly vetted locations with a good reputation. And in the event I do run into trouble Paul has his shotgun, and I've got a surprise stowed with all the other junk in the cab.” He paused, as if waiting for Matt to ask what, then continued anyway. “By which I mean my trusty SMAW.”

  Matt blinked. “I don't know what that is.”

  “Rocket launcher,” the man clarified. “Most threats tend to vanish when you point something like that at them.” He grinned. “They'd definitely vanish if I fired a rocket off, vanish in an explosion that is, although I haven't had to waste one actually blowing anything up yet.”

  Hard to argue with that. Matt extended his hand. “Well hopefully you never have to. But if your route brings you back this way you're always welcome, and we'll try to make it worth your while.”

  “Can't ask for more than that.” Ned returned the handshake, then the two of them got back to overseeing loading the trade goods and packing everything up for him to drive on.

  Matt's offer was sincere. The trader's prices had been steep and he'd haggled ferociously, so the town's new acquisitions were costly. But they were also things Aspen Hill really needed, which they couldn't have gotten any other way. Matt was satisfied with how things had gone. He just hoped Lewis and the others who'd wanted their own chance at the offered goods weren't too miffed that he'd claimed them for the town.

  Either way winter was looking a bit less bleak now.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Birthday

  The temperature continued to plummet over the next week.

  They started seeing frost in the windows some mornings, which meant snows could come any day. Snows weren't unheard of for mid-October, especially at their slightly higher elevation, although they were very rare. But not this year, everyone expected, and with this cold most agreed that once they came they'd probably stick around for the rest of the winter.

  Which could last for seven months, or even longer. Nuclear winter was hard to predict, especially on the scale they were looking at after the Retaliation, but the one thing they could all be sure of was that it was going to be brutal. The cold people scrambled to prepare for now would only get worse, and sub-zero temperatures were pretty much a given.

  Among the other preparations Trev made was winterizing his beehives. He wasn't sure how the little guys would manage a winter like this, or even if they could. It seemed like they'd been doing their own scrambling to gather honey to prepare, and his mom and Lewis both agreed they'd produced more than usual.

  There was a brief argument about harvesting the honey now and letting the hive die, since they weren't sure they could keep it alive through the winter anyway. But since their food situation wasn't desperate and keeping the hive long-term was still a goal, they agreed to do their best to help it through til spring. Besides, they all liked bees, and none of them enjoyed the thought of killing off the little critters even if it was pragmatic. Especially Jim and Linda.

  The cold seemed to have shaken everyone up. Matt's community projects like building shelters were put on hold as everyone concentrated on their own situation. Trev spent most of the next week dividing his time between helping Lewis gather fodder for the shelter group's animals as well as his own promised kid doe, hunting and gathering and preserving all the food they could, and chopping firewood and gathering deadfall.

  Everyone who could helped out, even the young kids like Terry and April's boys and the children from Jane's group. They gathered up armfuls of cut meadow grass, picked up sticks, searched for edible plants, and were handy to run errands and deliver messages.

  Mary's birthday was October 10th, a week after Ned's visit. The family had planned a subdued party for her, recognizing that turning 18 was an important milestone even with the world the way it was. But to prevent the party from being too big a distraction from their work, the night before her birthday Lucas called everyone together in the Halsson cabin for a serious discussion about what the winter would mean and what they could do.

  They'd talked about it almost nonstop for the last few months, of course, but it didn't hurt to lay the situation out clearly.

  Trev sat with Linda and Jim on Mary's cot, while his cousin shared her parents' bed with her mom, Trev's mom, and Deb. The others were scattered around the room or seated on the floor, with Lucas occupying a comfortable chair near the stove.

  His uncle's cough had steadily worsened over the last week, going from occasional explosive bursts to sustained episodes that lasted a few seconds. Trev was a bit worried, and he knew everyone else was too, but Lucas had insisted that a cough was nothing to worry about unless he started seeing other symptoms. He was getting plenty of rest, at least, although Aunt Eva and Lewis had to constantly battle him on the issue when there was so much to do.

  “I've got insights to offer, as I'm sure we all do,” Lucas began once everyone was settled. “But since we've got two people here who've actually lived through a pretty brutal winter I'll turn things over to my son and nephew.”

  Lewis nodded and stood. Trev had agreed his cousin should lead the discussion, and he'd chime in where necessary. Lewis opened his mouth to begin, then paused to wait patiently while Lucas coughed a few times in quick succession.

  “Don't mind me,” his uncle said when he was done, taking a sip of water. “Blasted cough's turning into a real nuisance. Go ahead, son.”

  “All right,” Lewis said quietly. He was obviously pushing down his worry to stay on topic. “We all know we're facing a hard winter, but not an impossible one. Trev and I spent last winter up in the hideout, and given the difference in elevation and snowfall I'm guessing what we face down in this valley will be about as severe. We came through it all right, and there's no reason the family can't now. We can give you an idea of what to expect, and teach you some of the lessons we've learned.”

  “Lesson one,” Trev cut in dryly. “Don't expect to get out much. We'll be facing snowdrifts deep enough to bury our house, and bitter cold temperatures. Don't be surprised if you're walking in snow up to your waist after a fresh snowfall, and any crust that forms afterwards will almost be worse, since it probably won't hold your weight. Even with the option of bundling up enough to handle the cold, by the time we're halfway through this winter most of us will prefer relieving ourselves in buckets to trudging twenty feet to use an icy cold outhouse.”

  “Fantastic,” Linda muttered. “Thanks for sharing.”

  Lewis gave the young woman a steady look. “If you have trouble even hearing about it, consider when you'll have to live it. We'll do the best we can to make things comfortable and allow for privacy, which is why we've built lean-tos against the back doors of both cabins, fitted with benches with holes to put the bucket beneath. We'll use our proven trick of heating stones against the stove to carry out there when we need to use the space. With them the temperature should be tolerable, and while you'll still have to bundle up and head outside to empty the bucket and clean it out, it's better than doing your business in the cold.”

  Linda pouted a bit at the mild rebuke, but subsided.

  “And that's just the first of the hard realities we have to face about what's coming,” Trev said, motioning for Lewis to continue.

  In his usual thorough, orderly fashion his cousin laid out ideas to make handling living in the cold more workable. Everything from priorities when it came to cold weather gear, what signs to look out for when it came to frostbite and other cold related medical issues, to storing, protecting, rationing, and cooking their food.

  One of the biggest considerations outside of food was firewood. They'd gathered up a huge store, both from cut and split logs and from all the extra bark, wood chips, and other detritus left over from construction, and they continued to add to their woodpiles. Since they'd now been using the wood burning stoves for so long, they had a good idea of how much
they needed to keep the fire burning consistently for long periods of time. Given that, they were confident they had enough to keep them going through even a winter that lasted more than half a year.

  There was also the option that if the weather wasn't too bitter they could head out and chop down more trees, although unseasoned wood didn't burn very well so they might be better off gathering deadfall. That would be tough since most of the deadfall within miles of town had already been dragged in, but with sleds they could venture farther afield and might even have an easier time moving it.

  But whatever the situation of their firewood, as a rule Lucas wanted them all to strike a balance of using just enough fuel to keep their cabins tolerable during the day, and if possible damping the stoves and relying on blankets and shared body heat at night. Even if they had enough wood to last them more comfortably, that fuel represented labor and the less they used the more time and energy they'd be able to put to other things long term.

  “So don't expect to be hanging out in shirtsleeves, even indoors,” his uncle finished wryly. “Either bundle up, stay under your blankets, or get used to hanging out a foot from the stove doing whatever work you can find to fill the hours.”

  For Trev most of that work was going to be making bullets with Lewis. Now that his cousin had what he needed and they were all set to go, they'd be able to fill the winter months with a mindless, repetitive task where they were motivated to produce the best quality possible because lives could literally be on the line.

  Trev could barely conceive of what those reloaded cartridges could mean for them. Lewis now had enough casings, powder, primers, and lead and jacketing material for thousands of rounds. Aside from their families never having to worry about running out of ammunition again, the profit they could make from selling the surplus should be enough to feed them through the next winter, if not longer.