The group looked at Amber, Madison, and Diane as they prepared to leave. Jo and Emma held the twins close. They had an entire Community to watch them while their parents were away.
With one last wave, the two women drove away, heading for Nordale Road and the way from North Pole to our old house.
They saw where we’d driven over foliage encroaching on the road. Nordale intersected Chena Hot Springs Road near the bottom between two hills. To the left, our house. To the right, Two Rivers and Chena Hot Springs Resort. The tire marks where I’d slid around the corner were clearly visible. Amber turned to the right and followed. They didn’t find anything to tell them which road we’d taken into Two Rivers, but they followed them, one by one, honking and hoping that we’d be close. They shut off the engine often to listen.
“You don’t think…?” Madison started to ask.
“Of course they did. They went to the Resort!” Amber snorted. She spun out more quickly than she intended, which jostled Diane. She slowed and regained control. Once on the main road, she sped up. It was only another thirty-five miles to the resort.
Soon, they were sitting on the runway, looking at the quad sitting next to an empty spot where the plane used to be.
“If he isn’t dead, I’m going to kill him!” Madison vowed angrily. Amber hung her head.
“Was there ever a doubt? When those two are together, they get weird. It’s like they think they can conquer the world through their shared force of will. I thought they might come here. I hoped they wouldn’t, but I knew better,” Amber finished in a whisper.
“But they shouldn’t have! They lied to us,” Madison insisted.
“Maybe they didn’t intend to take it when they first came out here. Lucas had been keeping the plane ready to fly. He didn’t think I knew, but I did. Why are we trying to make them something that they aren’t? In some ways they’re like little kids. In other ways, there’s no one else I want around. They kept us comfortable, even when we had nothing,” Amber said, watching a raven flying in the distance. “They are who they are and we married them because of that. Now we don’t like something that they would have always done? Shame on us. When they get home, and I mean when, not if, maybe you can watch Diane while Lucas and I take a couple days for a lover’s retreat. And there he’ll get the spanking he so richly deserves.” She smiled devilishly.
Madison didn’t know what to say. She had to think about it. They were comfortable. Lucas and I hadn’t left them to fend for themselves. They had plenty to eat, good shelter, and an endless supply of drinking water. There was time before anything else needed to happen.
“I’ll drive the other quad. Let’s stop by my old house. I’d like to bring a family picture with us to the new place.” Amber nodded as they belted Diane in. It wasn’t optimal for a two-year-old, but they didn’t have a child’s car seat.
Madison looked at the gun case, seeing that the 45-70 was still there. She looked in the back. All our tools and gear were still on the quad. She shook her head, knowing that we’d flown without taking any equipment.
The two quads turned and headed down the road, leaving Amber and Madison to their thoughts as the wind and trees rushed by.
CHRIS AND COLLEEN
Colleen rode Penelope as they walked slowly on the road to North Pole. It took a couple days to get the horses used to human company again. The saddles were in sorry shape, so they had to scavenge Delta Junction to find a cream that they could work into the leather to soften it.
Taking it easy was Colleen’s idea. Chris thought that she wanted the time to daydream and relive an old life that was comfortable. He knew she missed it, but he couldn’t help any of that. All he could do was give her time to reconcile herself with today and what that meant.
She let her horse walk casually. Chris couldn’t talk with her because he had to keep the quad away from the horses. He didn’t want to spook them. So they traveled in silence. They could have made the trip in a single day, but it extended to three days. When they were a few miles from North Pole, Colleen waved Chris ahead and yelled to let the others know that they’d be there soon. She smiled at him as she hadn’t in a long time.
He smiled back at her and waved. Hermione slept peacefully in her carrier buckled into the passenger seat. They’d found it when they were looking for saddle soap. Chris took the carrier and put it to good use. He felt better with the baby protected, and she seemed happier, too.
And now they were all happy. He grinned as he let the quad run up the straightaway toward their new home.
He pulled in to find the other two quads gone and only a couple of people around. The engineers were at the refinery. Amber and Madison were searching for their husbands who had disappeared two days previously. Abigail and Phillip were exercising the dogs as they prepared to go in search of the search party. Jo and Emma watched the twins, their Tony, and little Bill. Becca and Darren had taken a dog team moose hunting. Clarisse was in the kitchen and Ben was trying to get his fish wheel working.
Outside of that, everything was normal. Chris parked the quad, hoping that they had running water, which they did not. There was a hand pump to fill a portable gravity shower that fed into a large hole they’d dug in the sand of the playground. This made up their outhouse, septic, and wastewater disposal area.
It would do. He stripped and washed, using a towel to cover himself to go into the school and dig out new clothes. They’d been gone for eleven days. It was nice to finally have a shower, even if it was lukewarm.
He was clean and refreshed when Colleen rode in on Penelope, leading Sophie. The few people there cheered as she held her hands above her head as if she’d just won an Olympic gold medal. With Chris’ help, she climbed down and greeted everyone warmly. They walked as a group to a fenced-in field a few blocks away. They told her how Lucas and I were going to scout the area, find an old truck that would be fine with the gas we had, fix it, and then return. Once Chris and Colleen arrived, they’d go to Healy, and see if they could find any sign of people, and specifically, the lost daughter.
After removing the saddles, they put the horses into the small pasture. The grass was thick and the horses started grazing. Although they were shaggy-looking, Colleen had brushed them whenever they stopped on their return journey. They looked more respectable. The pasture didn’t have a water source. Chris said he’d take care of that and he headed back to the school.
Colleen couldn’t believe that she was reunited with her horses. Maybe God was smiling down on her. She’d come to grips with her new life and she liked it. She liked her previous life as well, but that was a world and a lifetime away.
The group slowly walked back to their new home. Bill held Jo’s hand as he walked, yelling at this or that when they passed anything that interested him. The twins rolled their eyes every time he opened his mouth. When he was older, I expected we’d see some fireworks and a major throw down between him and the twins. Until then, we had a marginal truce.
As the group approached the school, they could hear a quad in the distance. They waited until it approached, only to see that there were two quads, the engineers’ and Ben’s, but there was no sign of us. Amber and Madison drove up and stopped next to the vehicle Chris had parked in front of the school. They shook their heads as they got out. Everyone wanted to know what happened and where we were.
“They took the airplane,” Amber said as she turned her back on the group and carried Diane inside. Madison nodded to the twins with a look of reservation.
As usual, they had complete confidence in me, their father. They weren’t worried. They shrugged and headed for the kennel to see their dogs.
NENANA
Lucas and I stayed at an abandoned cabin by the river. There were three cans of green beans and nothing else. We ate those and drank lots of water to help our bruised muscles. After two days, we had to start moving, find food, and a means of transpo
rtation.
“Besides not telling our wives, nothing else has changed,” I said. “Sure, we wanted to wait until Chris and Colleen were back, but since we’re halfway to Healy, maybe we can find a truck down here. Fix it, get it going, and drive the rest of the way. Take a look and then go home. Then we won’t have to go away again. I’m not sure I want to drive this road twice.”
“All we have to do is find a vehicle. Do you think the restaurant in Nenana has a drive thru? I’m pretty hungry,” Lucas said in a tired voice.
“I’m sure it does, my man. Let’s go see what we can find.” We walked to the highway and then turned north. We avoided looking at the cars at first because of the dead bodies, but then the realization hit us that these people may have packed food for their trip.
We looked into back seats, hoping to see beef jerky or anything in a sealed package. The insides of the windows were covered with a nasty film caused by the decomposing bodies. We looked for vehicles without people, but all of them were covered with pollen, ash, and dirt from sitting outside for four years. We used our sleeves for a quick clean of the back-door window. Peer inside, and move on. The first one that held promise was empty of people. I tried smashing it with a rock, but it crumbled when I drove it into the window.
“You have got to be kidding me.” I looked at Lucas and he started laughing. We looked around, finally settling on a metal fencepost in the ditch. I dragged it into the road and both of us used it like a battering ram to run it through the window. Lucas reached his good arm inside and pulled on the door handle. It popped open and we dug through the boxes of goods in the back seat. Spam, Vienna sausages, and canned bread. The spam and Vienna sausages had lids that opened with a pull tab. But we needed a can opener, or at least a sturdy knife to open the bread. Using our battering ram, we broke through the back windows of ten different vehicles. We used rags from the first car to cover our faces and hands while digging through the back seats.
We found everything we needed, but wanted to wash it all off before we touched anything further. So we used bottled water – almost every car had a few. We drank and ate until we couldn’t move. We decided that once you scraped the weird jelly from the spam, it tasted good.
We hacked down two small trees using an axe that someone thought to bring along, and tied T-shirts to them to make what the Indians would call a travois, which made it easier to drag our supplies up the road. I thought we only had ten or fifteen miles to go to get back to town. When we passed a road sign, it said twelve miles to go. At our pace, that was six hours of walking before we could rest. We both wanted to get home.
Never keep your better half waiting.
It was amazing how we were able to keep going with food in our system. We made the walk in five hours, but we were tired when we arrived. We looked for a home that was unoccupied, finding a small cabin on the outskirts of town. We set up a temporary home as we looked for a vehicle to fix and drive away. We didn’t stray far from the cabin the rest of that day. Our feet hurt and we were tired and bruised.
We used bug dope from inside to douse ourselves before lounging outside. We lit a mosquito coil, then a second that we put to box ourselves in. I fell asleep sitting in the chair. Lucas lay on the ground and was out cold. I don’t know what time it was when we awoke, but I had a hard time standing. My legs were stiff from too much exercise, but at least my chest had stopped hurting.
Lucas got up and stretched. He didn’t look or act sore. That was the advantage of being twenty years younger. We didn’t appear like we’d crashed a plane three days earlier, but we had. We were walking and that was testament enough to our transgression.
I wanted to find a ride quickly and get this over with. How long would it take to get to Healy and search for the missing woman? I had no idea, but had no intention of letting it drag out any longer than necessary. Either she was alive and willing to be found or she wasn’t.
A SINGULAR FOCUS
Lucas and I found a truck not far away. It was parked in the driveway as if they had just returned from the store. It was older, we thought a late 1960s Chevy truck with a small block V8. Lucas was in heaven. He tore into the engine with reckless abandon. I felt useless except to hand him tools from the owner’s garage. I then excused myself to go “shopping” for more food.
I kept a rag wrapped around my face as I went from house to house. Many were unlocked, making it easy to take a look inside. I towed a four-wheeled garden wagon behind me. I had already added my normal shopping tools: a pry bar, a sledgehammer, bolt cutters, and an axe. I found six unopened quarts of oil. I’m sure we could find more if needed. The truck used at least that much.
The best find that I made were two hunting rifles. Both were .308 caliber and there was ammunition with them. We didn’t know what we’d run across by Denali National Park, whether Russians or the grizzly bears. Being well-armed was the best hedge against the unknown.
I circled back to meet up with Lucas. He had the hood closed and was wiping his hands.
“I think she’s good to go, but the battery’s dead,” he said without preamble.
“I don’t know if we can find a good battery, but I’ll start looking. There has to be a garage or gas station where you can buy a battery. We won’t be paying, of course.” I laughed at my own joke.
“No need, Chuck! I topped off the water in the battery. Once we get it started, it can charge itself,” he said. I looked at him oddly, reminded of the chicken and the egg philosophical debate. “It’s a stick,” he added.
Finally it registered. We could push start it, pop the clutch and get it running. I started to climb in to the driver’s seat, but Lucas held me back.
“Come on, Chuck. This is my baby!” He looked confident.
“The last time you kicked me out of the driver’s seat, we ended up in the river, swimming. You push.” I gently removed his hand from my shoulder and got in. I tipped my head toward the back of the truck.
“Fair enough, but once we get going, I drive.”
“Once we get going, we load up everything we need, then you drive,” I made my point firmly. Last time we flew off without any of our stuff, but then again, if we had, it would all be at the bottom of the river.
I pumped the brakes until I felt pressure. I released the emergency brake, the foot pedal type, and waited for the truck to start rolling. I heard Lucas in the back grunting as he pushed. Something snapped and it started rolling forward. I took my foot off the clutch while it was in first gear and it stopped on a dime. I heard Lucas yell.
“What the hell, Chuck!” He was holding his bleeding lip where his face smashed into the tailgate when the truck stopped so abruptly.
“Sorry about that, Lucas. Brakes must have been rusted. I was hoping we’d get it to turn over sooner rather than later.” Lucas wiped his mouth and spit blood on the ground.
“Wait until you’re going a little faster this time,” Lucas counseled me. I nodded and waved an arm out the window.
I pushed in the clutch, and this time the truck rolled more freely. Lucas pushed it on the level, quickly building speed. I almost lost sight of what I was doing and narrowly avoided hitting a parked car. I swerved and popped the clutch at the same time. The engine barked once and the wheels chirped on the pavement. It didn’t catch. I stopped.
Lucas jogged up, breathing heavily and started pushing again. We were starting to run out of room. At the end of the street, I popped the clutch again and it barked, coughed, sputtered, and quit. Lucas was bent over with his hands on his knees. I parked the truck and got out.
I pointed to the cab with my thumb. Lucas didn’t seem as tired when he jogged forward and jumped in. I pushed the truck forward and around in a circle. We were pointed back the way we’d come. I started pushing. After two steps, Lucas let up on the clutch. I hadn’t built any momentum, so I didn’t smash into the tailgate. I stood up straight and met his eyes in the
rearview mirror.
“Age and deceit over youth and ability any day, my good man. Any day. Now let’s get this beast started and get on the road!” I put my shoulder into it, happy with how well the truck rolled. Halfway down the street, Lucas popped the clutch and the engine roared to life. After the first few belches of blue-black smoke, it settled down. Lucas grinned and waved at me to get in.
We drove down the street, stopping at the truck’s home so we could liberate the toolbox from the garage. This went into the truck bed, along with the garden cart and everything in it. We drove to the cabin and loaded up our food. In just the neighboring houses there was enough canned food to feed us for months. Food wasn’t the problem in Nenana during the exodus from Fairbanks. It was the radiation and the panic.
“How much gas do you think we need?”
“Ten gallons would be good, twenty would be better.” We stopped at every house that had a garage or a shed, until we had our gasoline. We also took some T-shirts to use as filters when we poured the gas. More oil, too, just in case the old gas was hard on the cylinders.
Lucas had the window cranked down as he kicked it past first gear, settling to travel in second gear because of the jumble of vehicles on the road. First ten, then twenty, and thirty miles of dead vehicles in the road, but there was a clear lane of travel, almost as if someone had moved vehicles out of the way. Although we’d walked the road for five hours, we hadn’t thought about it until we saw it through the windshield.
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