Beyond the Barriers

by Timothy W. Long

  I dug around in the cabinets and found a hand grinder for the beans. There was some wood stacked outside the door, so I got a small fire going in the little oven and then went out back to get water. The rear door was locked, and had a double pane window that was covered in dust. I wiped at it to get a look out the back. All I saw were trees and a patch of cleared space around a tiny back yard.

  There were wildflowers growing everywhere, and the morning air was bracing, to say the least. The clouds were gone again, and as I walked to the lake to get water, I stared at the pastoral scene around me. It was like something from a painting. I splashed some water and marveled at how clear it was. I took a sip, and it tasted like heaven.

  Water in the pot, I managed to make coffee by dangling a paper towel filled with grounds in it while it boiled next to the fire. I didn’t want to turn the place over just yet looking for luxuries like coffee filters. Later in the day, I would check the stove and clean it if I had to.

  I spent the day setting up shop. I uncovered everything, opened the doors and windows, and let the place air out. The smell of dust went away after a while, as I cleaned. I took everything I could get my hands on outside and pounded on it as best I could.

  Unloading the SUV only took a few minutes. I stored the hunting rifle, and then set the boxes of bullets on the main table so I could get a count. Later I hunted around until I found some large nails and a hammer. I walked the mile to the gate and, after making sure no one could see me from the road, I nailed the plank back into place. Then I used the axe to hack some large branches and created a half-assed covering for the entrance. A cursory glance, and it would look like the road was overgrown. It wouldn’t fool anyone who got close to it.

  I aired out the bedroom, with its tiny twin bed, as well. I took the sheets off early and made an attempt at washing them in warm water; some I had boiled and the rest came from the lake. I found a pair of hip waders and walked into the water until it was almost to my hips, giving the sheets a good soak, then I rinsed them and wrung them out. I hung them between the edge of the cabin and a tree, letting them dry all day.

  Night came soon enough, and I decided that I had waited long enough, so I took the radio out of the box and wound it up. I flipped through channels that played music or the emergency broadcast message that still instructed folks to get to secure places. These were listed off by county.

  I found a radio station that was talking about the virus, but it sounded like a repeat, because it was all old news. Well, not that old, I guess. The collapse of civilization seemed to have happened in less than a week.

  I found a bottle of Scotch on a shelf, but I didn’t recognize the brand. I took a pull from the bottle, and it burned all the way down my throat until it hit my stomach. Then I did it again, drinking some water as a chaser. I remember watching old westerns where the guys sucked down shots of whiskey with barely a grimace; they must have had iron guts, because this stuff felt like fire.

  The surface of the lake was calm under the glow of the moon. A shadow slid over it, and I chalked it up to an owl on night patrol for a bite to eat. There was nothing to listen to up here, nothing to waste my day away on, like the television. It was so easy to just veg on the couch, but I doubted days like that would ever come around again.

  I thought of Allison and took another long pull from the bottle. Was she okay? She and her new guy? I popped out my cell phone, but there was no signal. I wondered if I went onto the roof, would I pick up a tower.

  Tomorrow I would scout around the lake and see if there were more cabins with people in them. I would be well advised to meet the neighbors.

  * * *

  After a night of tossing and turning on the bed, I wandered outside and got some fresh water from the lake. There was movement behind me, but a good ways off. I would guess about fifty meters. Probably a deer or elk.

  Bored. I had stacked my food supplies, counted the bottled goods, cracked one open and sampled the jam. Tried a jar of pickles, and they tasted decent. I made a list of all the food then figured out what I should eat each day to get a decent mix of veggies and enough starch. I made lists of the beans, how much made a portion, and then the rice, and how much I could get away with eating each day so that I wouldn’t starve. Then I planned a menu where I would be comfortably full each day.

  I cleaned my clothes in the tub. Now it was barely noon, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.

  I cranked the radio a few times, but all I picked up was more of the emergency broadcast station with the same message as yesterday. I found a station playing classic rock songs with no commercial interruptions, which was weird. Maybe they put the place on autopilot and headed for the hills like I did.

  I checked out the generator in the back shed, but there wasn’t much diesel for it. I had decided to rough it as much as possible and conserve the fuel. Well, roughing it in a cabin. It’s not like I had to sleep outside. I broke out my laptop and played a game of solitaire for half an hour, but watching the battery drain made me crazy, so I shut it down.

  I stared at the pad of paper I had found in a drawer and the box of pencils. I wasn’t able to find a sharpener, but my new Gerber knife made short work of it. I pulled the pad into my lap and started to recount all that I had seen in the past few days—the very journal you are reading now. How long I can keep up the writing is a mystery even to me. Once upon a time, I wanted to pursue a job in journalism. I even wrote for the school paper and dabbled in a few creative writing classes. The military was a strong calling, even in my early years.

  The days passed ever so slowly. I tried my hand at hunting, but it had been a long time. I didn’t even see a hint of game, let alone get a shot at one. A lot of smaller animals raced in the undergrowth, but I was far too slow to catch even a glimpse of one.

  One late afternoon, I caught a squirrel trying to shimmy up a tree. I got it in my sights and I was pretty sure I could put a hole in it, but once down I wasn’t sure how to clean and prepare it. So he got a reprieve for now.

  I tried to swim in the lake, but it was so cold I started shivering uncontrollably the moment the water reached my knees. Then I regretted not having hot water to shower in. By the time I got the tub full, I would be sweating.

  I climbed on the roof a few times and tried to get a signal, but it was no use. The cell phone showed no bars. Either I was too far away or there was a complete breakdown in the cell towers. Either theory was relevant. I thought about climbing a tree, but being this far from any sort of medical attention meant I could possibly die if I fell out—or at least impale a leg or arm on a broken branch.

  I tried fishing with a little success. I caught a small fish that looked like a trout, but it tasted plain no matter how much seasoning I put on the chunks of meat.

  And so my days passed. I wondered almost constantly if I should leave the cabin and go back to civilization. It had been two weeks, and I was starting to doubt the severity of the situation below. Maybe the military came in and set everything right, cleaned up the infected, and shipped them off to some camp where they were being cured even now.

  I was probably fired from my job, having been gone for so long. I bet they would understand. My manager Tammy was the no-nonsense sort, but she did have a sense of humor. I could see it now—her laughing as I told her I went to the mountains and lived like a hermit for a few weeks.

  Tomorrow I would walk the mile or two to the road and take a look.

  * * *

  It was cold and gray. Rain threatened from the moment I woke up. I didn’t have a rain jacket, so I decided to wait, and wait I did. For the next six days, it rained almost nonstop. I became so used to the sound of water running down the roof and the side of the cabin that I heard it even when there were breaks in the rain.

  I heated water one day, because I felt like the damp had soaked into my bones, and took a long, lazy bath in the tub. I sang songs from memory and even put headphones on and listened to my mp3 player for a precious half hour of musi
c. I planned to fire up the generator in a day or two and charge all the electronic devices.

  The rain let up for a few hours then set in again. I went to sleep after finishing off the scotch, but had to keep one foot on the ground to stop the room from spinning. The next day, I felt like shit, but I hauled myself out of bed and drank what seemed like a gallon of water. At least the rain was gone, so I popped a pair of aspirin from my medical kit and ate some food from one of the survival kits. Dry cakes of some shit that tasted gritty, but provided good protein and nutrients. The only downside was that the stuff caused terrible gas.

  I had a couple of cans of corned beef hash calling to me, but I was saving them for a special day.

  I would suit up and head down to the road in a few minutes.

  * * *

  Nothing. That was what I saw in an hour of standing around behind a tree waiting for a car to pass. Nothing went by, not a car, motorcycle or even a logging truck. I walked out to the street, inspecting the gate first, but there was no one in sight. I wanted to jump in the Honda and head back to town. It was driving me insane—the not knowing. Or maybe it was just loneliness.

  I flipped open my cell phone, and a single bar of connectivity faded in and out. I walked around the side of the road, then into it a few times, until I got a partial bar again. Then I dialed Allison, because I was worried about her. No matter what our problems had been, I loved her at one time. The phone tried to connect. It made some clicking sounds, followed by a fast busy signal. I tried another number, my manager at work, but got the same thing. Then I called Devon, and the sound repeated.

  I wandered back to the cabin and spent another week dreading the fact I needed to go back and see what was going on.

  * * *

  The cold of winter came on like a heavy curtain. I passed the next few weeks uneventfully.

  I hunted, and finally decided to climb up a large tree and lie on a branch. I took my rifle down, and after what seemed the whole day, I saw movement. I raised the rifle and sighted down the barrel. It had a very basic scope, but I was still able to bring the elk into focus. He wasn’t exactly heading toward me, but he was passing fairly close. I took a bead on his center and exhaled. I stroked the trigger, and the rifle hammered into my shoulder.

  The elk staggered and started to run, but I must have tagged him good, because he took two stumbling steps then went down. I let out a “yippee” and climbed down the tree to inspect my prize. The animal was huge, and his eyes remained on mine while I approached. He took deep breaths, and a light puff of fresh snow moved around his nose where the air snuffled in and out.

  I took my knife out and put an end to his suffering by slicing it through his neck. Now I had the problem of what to do with the meat. I spent the next few hours taking off the haunches, and then I skinned him as best I could and tried to bury the organs in the ground, but it was hard going with all the roots. The dirt was miserably cold, and after a while, I went back to the cabin and dug out some old plastic garbage bags. They provided a pretty poor substitute for a deep hole. Any predator with half a nose would seek them out in no time. I just hoped it wasn’t a determined bear.

  I didn’t bag everything. I set aside the liver and kidneys for stew. I felt like a real hunter, so I took a bit of blood and drank it down. Then I had to fight to keep from gagging.

  I dragged back chunks of the big animal and put them on the porch. Some of it I would turn into jerky. If the snow came on, as I suspected it would, I would bury the rest in an outdoor freezer and hope it didn’t thaw out too soon.

  * * *

  I went back and hacked at the ribs for a while and took a huge piece back. This I chopped and broke into smaller sections, and then I let a rack of six roast near the fireplace. I didn’t have much seasoning, but they were just about the best ribs I had ever eaten in my life.

  * * *

  Winter was like a heavy blanket of white, and I was stuck for the time being. Stuck may have been the wrong word. I could certainly head out in the SUV and drive nice and slow out of the mountains, but I thought it would be a good idea to stay in place and wait for the winter to pass. Make a fresh run at the city when all the madness was over. And so my existence ground to a slow crawl as I waited.

  I went out and started the SUV. I let it run for a good half hour. I ran the heater very high, so I could get at any moisture. The car already smelled like mildew, but it was worth a shot.

  I drove up and down the little drive way a few times, taking care to hit a few potholes. I wanted to shift the gas in the tank, let it move around. If condensation built up on the inside and mixed with the gas, I would have a hell of a time going anywhere.

  I created a calendar on a sheet of paper and put a reminder to do this again in a week.

  Days were routine, mainly focusing on what I would eat. The survival packs would only get me through another two months at best, so I made more of an effort to hunt.

  I took down a big buck and gave him the same treatment as the elk. After dragging the carcass a half mile away, I freaked when I thought I had lost my way in the snow. Stupid. If a fresh dusting of snow came along and covered my tracks, I would likely freeze out here.

  Weeks fled past and became a blur. For Christmas, I opened the last can of corned beef. I sang a Christmas carol or two and built up the fire. Low on wood, I would have to go stand in a foot of fresh snow tomorrow and chop some logs. If Ray came back, I would ask his forgiveness for removing some of his tree line. Until then, I wasn’t planning on hauling wood back through the snow.

  * * *

  It was February when I ran out of food. The last of the emergency supplies were gone, and I was down to the gristly parts of the last deer I had shot. I sat in the tree for three days, and not a single one wandered by. I knew from my old military training that I could survive for a few weeks with nothing to eat, as long as I had water. And that I had plenty of, thanks to all the cursed snow.

  I didn’t plan to wait around for that, so I packed a few supplies, loaded the shotgun, and put them in the car.

  I had to crank at the key a few times, but the car puttered to life. The gas had sat in the tank for a few months, and I hoped it would be fine. I backed out of the snow, which was somewhat melted and only a few inches thick. The bigger concern was the ice that lay underneath it.

  The car stuttered as I struggled to get moving. Hopefully shifting the gas around in the tank had helped.

  I opened the gate with a steady hand, but some of the nails fell out from my jury-rigged repairs. Once I slid past the gate, I put it back in place and pounded the nails in with the tire iron. Then I got on a road that was pure white; there were no tread marks at all. The cabin wasn’t too high up, another thousand feet, and I doubted I would have been able to drive at all if it had been up much higher.

  In four-wheel drive, the SUV handled quite well, but I wouldn’t have wanted to take it out in deep snow. I drove out of the mountain with the radio constantly scanning for signs of life. I came across a few stations that were playing music. One had old rock music on, and the sound of Steely Dan soon filled the car. The other was playing classical music for which I didn’t care, but I listened for the sake of listening.

  What would I find when I returned? The lack of news, talk radio, other channels had me concerned. I charged my cell phone as I drove. It had gone dead a few weeks ago. I was doing my best to conserve gas, so I didn’t bother firing up the generator to charge it. I tried to call Allison, but the phone gave the fast busy again. Then I tried co-workers, my manager at work. The phone clicked like it was trying to dial out, but I never got a ring from the speaker.

  There was less ice the farther I got down the road, and I was able to add some speed.

  I came across a small town—just a blip on a map, really. There was a gas station with no attendant. I slowed down and looked into the windows, but saw no movement. The pumps were an older variety but still electronic, and from my vantage point, I could tell they were dead. I waite
d but didn’t honk my horn. The road here was much clearer, and it was impossible to tell if anyone had driven here.

  I moved on and came across a small convenience store. I pulled into the parking lot and stared at the front window for a moment, but like the gas station, there was no movement. Leaving the car running, I jumped out, hoping for the best. I walked to the front door, where a sign proclaimed the store to be closed, but the inside was a mess, like someone had tried to pack the place into many large boxes that lay open on the floor. I tried the door, but it was locked. A metal gate shielded most of the door, but if I smashed it, I could probably wiggle in.

  I got in my car and headed back to town. As I hit the old back roads that got me here in the first place, I saw house after house sitting dark. I didn’t want to risk someone shooting me, so I drove slowly but only looked. If things were as bad as I thought, there was little point in me trying to approach one, in case someone was waiting with a shotgun behind the front door. I would be, if it were me.

  I came out of a street and found the main drag that led back to Vesper Lake. The two-lane road was free of traffic.

  I went around a bend doing about 45 MPH and skidded to a stop at a military checkpoint. There were a pair of men blocking the road, and a Hummer stood obstructing part of it.

  It has been a while, but I was pretty sure this was the same checkpoint I had left when it was manned by Lee and his men. Could this still be them? This didn’t make much sense. Why would they still be in the same location? It was probably another platoon tasked with keeping the peace.

  When I saw them, I felt a sense of relief. At last, I could get all of my questions answered. Maybe the town was under protection, maybe there was a full military presence and the whole thing was under control. I wanted to laugh with relief. I wanted to jump out and hug the soldiers standing by the wooden barrier.