Return (End Times Alaska Book 3)

by Craig Martelle

  Tanya took a special interest in him and soon they were often seen together.

  As August gave way to September, we had our supply run set up. We planned to drive the Alaskan Highway, a straight shot for two hundred sixty miles. We’d take both of our trucks, burning a mix of strained old gas and avgas. I was driving our old beater truck; Lucas had changed the oil and tuned it up specially for this drive, the same thing he’d done on the big truck. We’d also replaced the windshield with one we found in a junkyard.

  Tanya was coming, along with her son, Mark. She asked Shane to join us. They sat holding hands in the back seat while Lucas drove and Amber rode up front with Diane between them.

  I wondered who was going to ride with me, until Colleen climbed in. Madison didn’t want to leave the twins or the school for what could be a long and boring ride. We’d meet at the border. Stay there for a brief time, most importantly for Tanya to spend time with her dad, but also for Colleen to check the medical supplies, then drive back home. We were leaving in the dark and we’d probably return in the dark. I looked forward to the trip, but not the drive.

  We requested a pizza as we expected to get there around lunchtime. If they didn’t have pizza, then tacos, heavy on the cheese. We didn’t have flour or cheese, so these were delicacies in our book. But we didn’t want to gorge on goodies while the others had been without for so long. That being said, if they showed up with pizza and tacos, we couldn’t let them go to waste, could we?

  THE SUPPLY RUN

  We’d already driven from Tok and knew the road was in good condition, except for where we had to pick our way through the backroads of Delta Junction. That delayed us, but we made up time on the road to Tok. Without regular traffic, the only thing we had to deal with was debris and foliage that had been blown onto the road.

  When we reached Tok, we found the checkpoint that had been set up. We stopped for a relief break while Lucas and I reminisced.

  “It looked a lot different when people were shooting at us,” I said, seeing the garbage that had been left behind and the tent which was shredded and lying on the ground. “Malicious compliance, my friend. I’m glad they didn’t try to shoot us down. Would any of us be here if they had?”

  “No. But the Community would still be at Chena Hot Springs because the Russians would have never known we were there. We led them back. We saved our lives, but it cost Felicia hers,” Lucas said, staring blankly into the distance.

  “Years later when they pulled out. Maybe they knew we were there all along, but couldn’t risk flying over the DMZ until they had nothing left to lose. And I’m not making excuses to stroke my own ego. If we’d been shot down, things would be far different. How many of the women from Healy would have lived through this coming winter? Sometimes it costs lives to save lives, a hard lesson from the Marine Corps. And you know what? It still sucks a whole lot. Felicia didn’t do anything to them. Neither did the people of Fairbanks, or Delta Junction, or the women trapped in Healy. If we get this right, Lucas, then we get our state back. I feel more alive now than ever before. I’m not sure what else we need. I don’t need the government to come back and start regulating again. Maybe we can keep things as they are.” I kicked at the dirt and looked around for the others.

  It was time to get going. Next stop, the Badger border crossing.

  Unfortunately, we had to stop three times to cut trees that had fallen across the road. We didn’t have a chain saw, but we had two axes. At least the trees were smaller. We used a chain on the big truck to drag more trees out of the way. We took blind corners at a crawl, not wanting to hit something waiting for us just around the bend.

  Overall, it was a pleasant drive and the return trip would go much faster.

  The highway widened and the road was in perfect condition for the last few dozen miles to the border. We had the windows rolled down as we cruised through the cool mountain air. The weather was perfect for this time of year. We were upbeat, which made me start to worry. When I felt like this, bad things soon happened.

  This time, I was wrong. We pulled to the border station and stopped. There was a large parking area to help us turn around, because we needed to hook up the trailer that Tanya’s father had brought. We hadn’t been expecting that, only a few crates of supplies. That wasn’t the important reason we were here, just an added bonus.

  We stopped and Tanya was the first one out. She helped her two-year-old son out of the truck and waited for Shane, who was hesitant to get out. She smiled at him, then walked across the border to where her father vibrated in anticipation.

  Shane followed closely behind, holding little Mark’s small hand as Tanya and her father embraced. I had to look away as the man who was little older than me sobbed uncontrollably. Colleen was all business as she walked to another person standing by the truck and the trailer. They shook hands and he opened the back for her.

  “Holy cow!” she exclaimed. They had to move a few things to get to the medical supplies. She started to inventory what would soon stock her clinic. She couldn’t have been happier, although she turned down some of the supplies as unnecessary. Flu vaccine only mattered if you were exposed to the strain. We had no such exposure. She accepted the pneumonia vaccine instead. She turned down more drugs. They also removed a few cases of baby formula. She insisted that we didn’t need any of that as the babies would breastfeed until they were old enough for hard food. Baby formula was a twentieth-century creation to take the place of a working mother. We didn’t have that restriction either, although she took a breast pump instead.

  I left her to it. I couldn’t follow what she was saying anyway. She had good reasons for every decision that were hers alone to make.

  Lucas and Amber were on the phone inside the border control building. That left me to myself. There was another vehicle, a suburban with darkened windows. The driver waved me over. I thought that vehicle had been for Tanya’s father. When I climbed in, I learned differently.

  The general was there. He was the one I was supposed to report to. I’d called once since we’d returned and hung up on him when he’d asked too many stupid questions. I wondered if he was miffed about that.

  “Hey, General, glad to see you,” I said with as much joy as I could muster, holding out my hand. He reluctantly took it. “Had I known you were coming, I would have dressed up, although I did shave!” I held up my chin for him to see.

  He started to laugh. “You’re a pain in the ass. You know you couldn’t tell me about this little unsanctioned side trip, since we can provide no assistance. And Canada can’t either. I’ll tell you, strictly off the record, that I am personally pleased that you’re getting this stuff.”

  I nodded. “Off the record,” he said. That was the bureaucratic idiocy that I was happy to not have in my life. I looked forward to walking back across the border.

  “Why are you really here?” I asked, already tired of playing the game. The general didn’t seem to want to be here either.

  “The Russians are moving. They’ve landed a group outside Anchorage and they’re heading north in a convoy. They have vehicles and a supply train, all illegal under the treaty, but nonetheless, they’re heading north. We think they might be coming to Fairbanks.”

  “Military?” I asked, giving him my undivided attention.

  “We think many of the forty are military, but believe their goal is to establish a settlement so they can contest our claim before the UN, who’s going to make the determination next year after they conduct a survey.”

  I thought about it. Forty military. We’d be vulnerable. We were in a fixed position, without vehicles, with few shooters and only two with any military training. I exhaled and rubbed my temples. Another change and an unhappy one.

  “What do you want us to do about it?” I finally asked, afraid of what the answer might be.

  “We want you to get some pictures of them using prohibited equi
pment. We don’t want you to engage them in any way, not even a dialogue. We think they went with those numbers knowing that you went in with twenty-two. But with the survivors from Healy, your group outnumbers them by a good measure. By the way, well done on the rescue of the women and children. You’d get a medal if I liked you, but I don’t, so you’ll have to accept something else. In the trailer, we’ve stashed some extra ammunition for your .45, 45-70, and 300 Win mag. Those are your weapons of choice, aren’t they?” The general sat there with a smug look on his face.

  “For not liking me, you seem to be my creepiest stalker, but I appreciate the ammunition. More is better. I have my phone and can take pictures with that. Will that work?”

  “Yes. Download a copy to this,” he said, handing me a thumb drive with a lightning connector for my iPhone, “and give it to the UN representative when they arrive. If you can get a copy to us ahead of that time, then we would be most appreciative.”

  I was going to ask him how I did that, but he didn’t care how far I traveled or how dangerous it was. He only wanted the pictures to solidify his own position. I nodded once without offering to shake his hand again and I got out. I leaned back in. “For the record, I don’t like you either.” I don’t know why I felt compelled to say that. It didn’t make me feel any better. I closed the door without slamming it and walked boldly back toward the border.

  Tanya and her dad stopped me before I crossed. He wanted to shake my hand, thank the person who’d brought his daughter back from the dead. He held his grandson in his other arm. His eyes were still red, but all of them looked happy. Their reconciliation was long past due. It was good to see them embrace today, plan for tomorrow. Shane stood nearby, looking far more comfortable.

  I thanked the man for the supplies. Inevitably, something in there would be used to save a life. There were drugs for the people still suffering from botulism. The three had survived, but their recovery was glacially slow. The medicines would speed up their return to health.

  There was something for everyone, from spices to the parts most likely to fail on our generator. There was flour, cheese, and eggs, enough for a few meals. These were to celebrate the newcomers, the survivors from Healy. They’d been deprived for a long time and deserved a special treat.

  We’d discover what else was there when we unloaded back at the school. It would be like Christmas, except better.

  The last two things he did before we departed was to top off our gas tanks with fresh gasoline and hand us hot food: fifteen boxes of pizzas and a couple bags of tacos. The only place the pizzas would fit was in the bed of my beater truck. Mr. Bezos took off his jacket and wrapped the pizza boxes in it and then wrapped them in a second layer using a blanket from his vehicle. It wouldn’t be warm when we got home, but it would be the best pizza any of the survivors had had in years.

  WINTER

  We saw the first snowfall at the end of September. The second through tenth snowfalls were at the beginning of October. By Halloween we had four feet on the ground. On the first of November, temperatures plummeted and stayed that way through December when the snow started again.

  I was happy to fire up my snow machine and take it for a spin. With three feet of cold snow on the roadways, we could make great time anywhere we went. I made it to Delta Junction in just over thirty minutes. I didn’t tell Madison that part. I don’t know why I drove the snow machine so fast, but maybe it was just how they were meant to run.

  Not a typical Alaskan winter but close enough. We were mostly ready. Our arrangements with the outhouses turned out to be woefully inadequate. People would wait until the very last minute, then race outside to do their business, returning two minutes later half-frozen.

  Erecting a temporary building in the middle of winter was a challenge in and of itself. At least we didn’t have anything else to do. With the snow and the temperatures, everything was ten times more difficult. A dozen of us worked together in acquiring the wood, which consisted of dismantling a nearby shed and rebuilding it on a skid that would sit above the holes we’d dug for the outhouses.

  We built stalls and insulated it all. We put in an electric heater that worked great until someone accidentally left a few squares of toilet paper too close to it. After our temporary building burned down, we built a better one the second time around, putting the heater into the ceiling, insulated and grounded to prevent another accidental fire.

  Clarisse and Jo managed the kitchen duties. Everyone took their turn as prep cooks and clean-up crew. There were too many people to eat in one shift, so we split into two groups, rotating members so that people got to the chance to see all of our Community members at some point during the week. We wanted to keep things fresh.

  Then one day we realized that Bill was no longer yelling. We asked Darren and Becca what was wrong. They said that he’d finally grown out of the bellowing stage, but it also may have had to do with something else. Becca was pregnant again and it seemed the baby was sensitive to loud noises. When Bill howled, the baby would start kicking and wouldn’t stop until it was quiet again.

  I would have never thought that. I suspected we’d get another howler. We could not have been happier for them because they were happy.

  The members of the Community grew closer with each day. That included all of us, new and old. Shane and Tanya decided to get married. This caused a full deliberation between Terri and me. As mayors, we didn’t have the authority to marry people. As the military governor, I thought I could, just like the captain of a ship. In the end, we realized that we didn’t care if it was legal by someone else’s laws. It was their decision. The formal ceremony would be for their benefit. No one here cared if anyone had a piece of paper with a governmental stamp approving their relationship.

  So we gathered everyone together in the cold gymnasium and said a bunch of good things about the happy couple. They committed to each other and that was that. We removed the tables from the dining room so we could all fit for the banquet. It made for a tight squeeze so we filled the wide hallways, too.

  I hadn’t checked on the Russians. I started calling the general once a month to let him know our headcount, food, and fuel status, that we had no problems. He seemed to like those reports. I thought they were ridiculous. The most important thing I had to report was that another month had passed and no one died.

  We had a huge bash at Christmas. We offered no presents as we didn’t want people “shopping” with the weather so extreme. We didn’t have much room for things, so we settled on telling each other what we liked about them and the group. It was different, but the men all had plenty of help in expressing their feelings. We were outnumbered six to one. At the end of the day, we retreated to our rooms with our spouses, happy with the world we’d created.

  In January, I couldn’t hold the general off any longer. The Russians had set up on the south side of Fairbanks, at the far end of the airport along the Chena River in an area we’d scouted and determined was perfect for our first fields and long-term home.

  That threw a wrench in our plans. We’d done initial work with the ground to get it ready for planting in the coming season. It wasn’t much, but enough that it would have allowed us to get the most out of our growing season.

  We had looked around, but once we found the spot, we didn’t look further. We had no backup plan, no secondary fields, and we couldn’t look now. The only thing we could do was hope for an early thaw. As I always said, hope is a lousy plan.

  That irked me enough that I wanted to go see them, spy on them, take pictures, and do all the things that would get them in trouble. Being in trouble with the UN wasn’t like really being in trouble. It was closer to being unhappy with a distant relative you never had any contact with.

  If the UN deemed us the better settlers, whatever that meant, then the Russians would have to leave. That was supposed to carry political weight, but what if they didn’t want to leave? This is
where the UN had no teeth, and the United States had already demonstrated that it wouldn’t fight for Alaska, except in the realm of diplomacy.

  It was up to me.

  No, that wasn’t right. It was up to us, the Community to decide what we wanted to do about it.

  THE RUSSIANS

  I asked Terri and we broached it at a group meeting of all the adults, which meant everyone attended. The only place big enough was the gym. So we set up a box to stand on and Terri and I stood in our parkas and stocking caps, waving our gloved hands for silence.

  “The Russians have taken the area we were going to plant next spring. They’ve moved in at the south end of the airport. I think they wanted that place so they could hide their vehicles and supplies. They have forty people, or so I’ve heard, who are trying to prove to the UN that they are better to settle this land than us.”

  A number of women in the crowd yelled angrily that we should go kill all the Russians. I wasn’t opposed to fighting, but didn’t want to start something we couldn’t win. Terri shut down the hostility of the crowd by speaking softly, but forcefully.

  “These aren’t those Russians. If they were, then we’d take them into custody and execute them for crimes against humanity.” There were cheers. I froze in place, not from the cold, but I didn’t know where she was going with her speech. I didn’t want her to commit us to a tragic course of action.

  “These aren’t those Russians. These are people just like us, living for today, planning for tomorrow. If they weren’t, why did they take the most fertile land we’d found? It’s where we should have been, but we hesitated because we were comfortable here. We were going to move there eventually, right? You snooze, you lose! When the snow melts and the ground thaws, we’re going to find a better place and we’re going to grow enough food for all of us and then some. When the UN comes next summer, they’ll find the people who can stand on their own feet right here. They’re going to look at us and see us doing what we do best, taking care of each other, raising our families. We’re better than they are. We’ve always been better than them,” she ended with a harsh tone.