by Nathan Combs
It was February, but felt more like a pictured scene while listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s I am a Rock. The area had already received ten times the normal amount of snow, and the sun’s yellow face had not been seen for over a month. Daytime highs were in the thirties and nighttime lows were at or below zero. If anything, it was getting colder.
Wade said, “It’s obvious something’s going on with the weather. And, honestly, I think that’s a bigger problem than future derelicts. We have to prepare to battle both. When will the new weather system be operational, Stu?”
“They’re having problems with calibration. It was supposed to be online a week ago. I checked with the techs this morning. They’re guessing another two or three days.”
“Anything on the GOES weather satellites?”
“Nothing. No signal at all. We’re not going to get any intel there.”
Bill jumped into the conversation. “There’s no doubt Mother Nature’s a bitch. But think about Stalingrad during WWII. I doubt it’ll get that cold here. At least I hope to hell it doesn’t. Point is, those people lived with extreme cold and bitter conditions for a couple of years. And they didn’t have our food or resources. So yeah, it might get tough, but if we make adequate plans we’ll be okay.”
Randal added, “Well… we have no choice. Let’s hope the weather’s warm enough in the spring to plant enough wheat to feed everyone. And speaking of planting, we need to figure out how much wheat we’ll need to last at least two years and make plans to get it into the ground as soon as possible. Plus, we have to ensure we can feed the animals.”
Wade said, “Let’s consider the possibility that it will never be warm again in our lifetimes. The cold could last for years. Maybe centuries. It looks like our lives are about to undergo another dramatic change. The decisions we make today are going to impact the generations of tomorrow, so let’s make the right ones. Stuart, I want you to meet with the nuclear people and find out how long the reactor will function and if there’s any way we can refuel it. I have no idea if that’s even possible, but let’s find out. We’re going to Fort-T for a few days. When we get back, we have to make some serious and logical choices about the future.”
Wade, Randal, and Bill headed back to Fort Terminus as soon as the meeting ended. When they arrived six hours later, Wade called a meeting. Everyone except the kids and the two women caring for them anxiously entered the double DRASH mess tent. They weren’t sure what the meeting was about but knew it was serious by how quickly they’d been gathered upon Wade’s arrival. Somber faces stared at Wade as he began.
“Nina and The Light won’t be the last bad guys we’ll have to deal with; I know you know that. Unfortunately, there’s a subtler and potentially more dangerous foe in our immediate future: Mother Nature.”
He went on to explain the potential problems the cold weather would present and gave them a synopsis of the measures Fort Hope was implementing to combat it.
“Since we don’t have a nuclear reactor, we’re going to face a different set of problems. Our DRASH tents are almost indestructible, so structure-wise we’re okay for a while. And, of course, we have more wood than we could ever use. I have additional wood stoves coming, including one for the animals. We need to start cutting wood. I’d like a two-year supply cut, split, and stacked as soon as possible. If the creek freezes, we’ll lose the ability to generate electricity, so as a precaution we’re going to take a look at installing two large wind turbines.”
Randal said, “We pilfered three chainsaws, bar oil, and accessories and still have four hundred gallons of gas. Since we don’t have to worry about The Light, we’ll get started on the wood first thing tomorrow.”
“Good. I don’t know how bad this will get, but I’m not hopeful. We have the hydroponics garden and we’ll get wheat from Fort Hope, but let’s plant what we can, where we can, first chance we get. Worst case scenario—and it would have to be extreme—we’d have to pack up and move to Fort Hope.”
That got everyone’s attention. Eyebrows rose. Wade could see they didn’t like that option. “Relax, guys. It’s not set in concrete. It’s a worst-case scenario.”
Linda asked, “How likely is the possibility of a worst case scenario, Wade?”
Wade exhaled heavily. “At this moment, Linda, I’d put the odds at fifty-fifty.”
After the meeting, Wade and Maggie talked in their quarters.
“God, Wade, I hope we never have to move to Fort Hope.”
“Me too, Mags, but we have to consider it and prepare for it. If it gets as bad as I think it might, we may have to consider relocating the entire population south to Florida, or even central America.”
Maggie’s jaw dropped six feet. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah. It’s a possibility.”
Maggie smiled. “Should I brush up on my Spanish?”
Wade laughed.
Stuart gave Wade the long-awaited weather update the day he arrived back at Fort Hope.
“The weather station’s up and running. You want the kinda-sorta good news or the bad news first?”
“Oh hell, Stu, just spit it out.”
Stuart laughed. “No one attacked us since you left.”
Wade grinned. “Do I even want to hear the bad news?”
“Probably not.”
“Lay it on me.”
“The weather station has only been operating for three days now, so keep that in mind. I compared the temps to the averages and extremes since 1898.” He shook his head.
“And?”
“Well… again, it’s only a three-day sample, but the average temps are down by twenty degrees. Since the first of the year, we’ve had twenty-nine inches of snow. That’s twenty-four inches above normal for this area. If we project those temperatures forward, the August highs are going to be in the upper fifties and the nighttime lows will be in the forties. Maybe upper thirties.”
“Balls. That’s about what I figured. We might be in deep shit here, Stu. Anything from the nuclear people on refueling the reactor?”
“Yeah, I talked with them about it at length. It’s not impossible, but it would be a very dicey operation. In a nutshell, they’d have to locate some fuel rods from a nuclear plant that still contained fissionable material, pull them, shield them, transport them here, pull the depleted rods, reinstall the new ones, and then effectively dispose of the old ones. So it’s probably not happening.”
“Well, it was worth a look. How long will the reactor function?”
“Low estimate is ten years. At the outside, we’re looking at fifteen years.”
“Could we create a wind turbine farm to generate electricity?”
“That would be more feasible. Finding turbines would be more of a problem than installing them.”
“Okay. Let’s eliminate the nuclear option and concentrate on wind turbines. Determine how many we’d need to duplicate the output of the reactor, then get some people on it. We may end up reconfiguring Fort Hope again. And, Stuart, Mags and I talked about this last night. In the future, we could be forced to move the entire population of Olympia to warmer climes. Let’s prepare for that contingency. I realize the comms guys have been monitoring every available Ham radio frequency on a daily basis, but have them concentrate their efforts on Florida, Mexico, and Central America.”
Stuart was thoughtful. “Yeah, moving to warmer climes crossed my mind too; I’ll get the radio guys on it. And, if you remember, I did a preliminary on a population cap, but I’ll reconfigure it with and without the nuclear plant. We do have an update on the state of the world via the Ham network, too. It’s not good.”
“Highlander monitors the network and gives us daily intel. Is this something new?”
“Just in. Hot off the press. There’s no way to confirm any of this—and per your order, we never
broadcast, only monitor—but it seems there’s a sizeable community just south of us. A station is broadcasting from the Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, area. Guy sounds like a total redneck and is inviting survivors to ‘come on down.’ We’ve also finalized the list of other survival locations. In addition to the new one at Fort Oglethorpe, the only one in the USA, or should I say what used to be the USA, is the one in Texas. Rough population estimate—guestimate for North America is at most 50,000. Worldwide, maybe a million. We located one group in France, just outside Calais. About five thousand survivors. There’s one in Russia, near St. Petersburg, with six thousand, and one in England, near the border with Wales… roughly four thousand people. There’s also ones in Brazil, Argentina, and nine other locations scattered around the globe. I can’t get any closer to an estimate because I have no way of projecting how many people haven’t made themselves known to society or don’t have a way to communicate. I’m just guessing, Wade, but the reality is humanity is on the ropes.”
“What about the Fort Oglethorpe location? That’s it? Come on down?”
Stuart laughed. “Yeah. Seriously. In a nutshell, that’s it.” Then in his best impression of southern redneck, he said, “The Colonel invites ya’ll to come on down to Fort Oglethorpe, Jawgha. We’re one big happy fam’ly. Bring yer wimen and kids. We gotchu covered, folks.”
Grinning at Stuart’s impression, Wade said, “The Colonel, huh? I don’t like the sound of that. Do we have anyone who can impersonate a redneck? Other than your lame-ass rendition?”
“Jesus, Wade, how hard can it be? Do you want to send a patrol to check them out?”
“Of course. Keep in mind history’s littered with the shredded celluloid and digital images of some asshole calling himself the Colonel.”
Chapter Eight
Anna
Noah and the girl came out of the thin strip of woods a hundred yards south of the gas dump at the exact moment it blew. The explosion eviscerated everything within twenty-five yards and knocked the Nirvana riverbank runner on his face.
Holding her arm, Noah doubled back and hustled north on the other side of the woods paralleling the river. A hundred yards past the raging fire, they stopped, crouched low, and listened. Distant shouts were loud in the cold nighttime air, and Noah could clearly hear the runner screaming, “They went cross the river.”
As he considered his next move, it started to snow. He lowered his night vision goggles and looked at the girl. She was staring at him, shivering uncontrollably. He could actually hear her teeth rattling. They sounded like Chiclets clinking onto good china. Goddammit, he thought. He took the standers thin jacket off her, removed his army issue Level V Jacket, and placed it around her bony shoulders. She used both hands to pull the collar close around her throat and stood silently vibrating, eyes never leaving his face.
The baying of the hound and barking of the dogs got his attention. They were still on the opposite side of the river.
That won’t last long, he thought.
Turning back to the girl, he placed his hands on her shoulders and said, “They’re going to get those dogs across the river and start tracking us. You good to go?”
In the greenish hue of his night vision, her face was expressionless but pinched and drawn, and the bruises and dried blood looked surreal. Man, that guy really fucked her up. She looked up at him, but her eyes revealed nothing. Her head bobbed up and down.
Noah knew the animals, especially the hound, would easily be able to track them. Although he could probably throw them off temporarily by going into the river, hypothermia wasn’t high on his list of things to experience before he visited Saint Pete. And the girl might not survive the ordeal. He looked to his right. It was roughly two hundred yards across a field to the woods. Making up his mind, he grasped the girl’s arm and they scampered across the expanse. Just inside the edge of the woods, he went prone and pulled her down beside him. Peering through the night vision scope on his silenced M4, he watched his backtrack.
The girl whispered, lisping, “Wha’ ah we doin’?”
“Whoa. It’s alive.”
“Funny. Wha’ ah we doin’, Thor?”
“And it has a sense of humor too.”
The girl rolled her eyes.
Noah said, “We can’t escape those dogs unless we go into the river; especially the damned hound. No matter what we do to throw them off, they’d eventually pick up our scent. So I’m gonna eliminate the dogs and the derelicts that’re with them. Then we can go grab a snack.”
“Wha’?”
“You know… food.”
“Dat soun’s good. Wha’ you wan’ me t’ do?”
“Nothing. Just hold onto the rifle, relax, and enjoy the show.”
Ten minutes later, the dogs were across the river, barking and howling while they followed the scent east. Within minutes, five guys and three dogs broke free of the strip of woods and started across the field. A bloodhound, a German shepherd, and a doberman pulled at their leashes held by three men. Noah waited until they were halfway across the field, sighted on the bloodhound, and squeezed off two rounds. The dog and the man holding its leash were trotting, and when the dog went down, he tripped and his nose plowed a shallow furrow in the newly-fallen snow. He jumped up, holding his nose. “Sumbitch.” The men controlling the other two dogs didn’t notice, or didn’t care, and kept coming. Noah sighted on the shepherd, then the doberman. All three dogs were down. Since there were no gunshots, the five men stopped and milled around trying to connect the dead animals to something tangible.
Noah thought they resembled dogs themselves looking for a place to shit. They died where they stood, landing to rest near the animals.
Noah looked at the girl and said, “Wait here.”
In a crouched run through the short brown grass he moved to make sure they were dead. He was startled by the squawk of a two-way radio partially covered by one of the bodies. He moved the dead man’s arm and picked it up.
“Goddamn it, Billy Ray. What the fuck r’ ya doin’? Answer me, g’damn you.”
Noah removed a grenade from his tactical vest, pulled the pin, and lodged it under the body of the man the radio had been closest to.
The voice was still berating Billy Ray. “Billy Ray, you fuckin’ moron, ah’m gonna kick yer ass. Answer me!”
Noah keyed the mike. “Sorry, asshole, but Billy Ray’s indisposed at the moment.”
There was silence for several seconds. “Who the hell’s this?”
Noah turned the volume down, put the radio in the pocket of his vest, and hustled back to the girl. “Let’s go.”
They walked fifty feet before the barking of two more dogs echoed through the night.
Noah stopped, turned the girl to face him, and said, “We have to go back.”
The girl was expressionless. Emotionless. Pliant. Noah gently took her arm and they returned to the shooting position.
They waited.
Noah looked at the pile of dead bodies disappearing under new snow. He glassed the area between the carcasses and the river until he could vaguely make out two dogs and ten men coming across the field through the intensifying snowstorm. He switched the sight to thermal imaging. These dogs were silent. He sighted on the closest but held his fire. When they reached the dead men, they stood staring. The dogs were not on leash, but were checked by two men holding their collars. They were barking furiously now and straining to be free. One of the men reached down and turned Billy Ray’s body over. The grenade went off.
The five men closest to the explosion were cut down immediately. One dog was out of commission. Noah immediately shot the other dog and focused his sights on the stunned rednecks. He shot three of them, but the other two dropped down and pulled the bodies of their comrades over themselves for cover.
Noah whispered in the girl’s ear, “W
e’re going to crawl backwards ’til we’re out of sight. We have to hustle; we’ll leave tracks in the snow. Okay?”
The girl nodded hastily. The two crept back from the field until they reached the tree line, then got to their feet and hurried north.
After two hundred yards, they headed to the river. “They’re going to be able to follow our tracks until the snow covers them. We gotta buy some time. We’re going to walk in the water until we reach the bridge. That’s almost a mile. It’s gonna be cold. Okay?”
Her eyes were huge. She nodded.
They reached the Tellico-Reliance Bridge and got out of the water under the snow-free span. Stepping carefully, they climbed to the northern abutment, and Noah showed her where he wanted her to stand. Then he hoisted himself over the bridge’s railing and reached down, grabbed her wrists, and pulled her up. He looked back down. A good tracker would see the minute signs they’d left, but the snow was coming down at a rate of at least two inches an hour and he hoped that by the time the derelicts got here—if they got here—their tracks would be covered. He made a 360-degree sweep with the thermal imaging optics, then took her arm, and they ran across the bridge and headed for his childhood home.
At the house, they removed their wet boots and socks, and Noah steered the girl into the bedroom, sat her on the bed, and attached a thick black spread over the window. He turned on a battery-operated lamp from his dad’s survival cache, then checked her feet and wrapped her in a blanket. The girl sat on the bed shivering and stared straight ahead while he heated up two MREs, gave her some water, and got his medical kit.