In The End: a pre-apocalypse novel (5 page)

They held a funeral service the next day, then moved their
refrigerator box behind the kitchen and packed as much fresh snow around it as
they could. They only needed the snow in case the weather went above freezing,
so they weren’t too concerned about the lack of snow. They transferred the
perishable food from freezer and the walk-in cooler, going back and forth for
the better part of an hour. That evening they went on what Angela called
“raids,” but Jim insisted were “supply runs.”

Terry made a long list that
included items Jim hadn’t thought of when he and Angela had scavenged the cabin
across the street from theirs. Jim and Angela thought some of the items were
strange, but they didn’t ask questions. He told them to keep an eye out for
certain things:

Candles

Batteries

Salt

Axes or hatchets

Soap

Toilet paper

Unscented bleach

Pens, pencils & paper

Metal hangers

Gas cans

Matches & lighters

Jewelry

Guns & ammo

First Aid supplies

He advised them that the list was not
exhaustive or exclusive. They should grab anything else they thought might be
useful, but he wanted them to specifically get those items if they could.

Angela thought they should go in
separate vehicles so they could cover twice as many houses in the same amount
of time, but Terry said it was not safe for them to be separated. He insisted
that they both go in his truck. Angela felt that the biggest threat they faced
was boredom, but she didn’t argue.

Terry didn’t say what he would be
doing while they were away, but they saw his handiwork upon their return four
hours later. He had sawn multiple bathroom doors into pieces that fit over all
of the lodge windows. When Jim saw what Terry had done, he just nodded.
Made sense.
Angela hated it.

“Now it looks condemned!” she said.

“Now it’s more secure,” Jim
replied.

Angela continued to complain as
they went inside and got Terry to help them bring in their haul of supplies.
“What are we secured from – the sun?”

“I’ll explain after we unload the
truck,” Terry said.

A half hour later they were
standing inside the lodge looking at the massive pile of items they had brought
in. Now they had the task of separating and storing. Terry and Jim began making
separate piles of stuff while Angela cooked. A short time later, she came out
with a large serving plate loaded with hamburgers, toppings and a bag of potato
chips. They all sat down at the large dining table to rest, eat and talk.

“I know I haven’t explained what
I’m thinking or why I’m doing what I’m doing, but to be perfectly honest, I’m
not entirely sure myself. I’m just
wingin
’ it.”

Angela said, “I understand going
for supplies. Jim had us do the same thing right after the bomb. It was good
thinking. I know I wouldn’t have thought of it. But I don’t understand the windows
being boarded up.”

The amount of light coming in
through the two skylights was fading. Dusk outside meant dark inside.  “If
one of you will start a fire, I’ll tell you where my head is at – as soon as I
grab some coffee.”

Jim got up and worked on starting a
fire, and then he and Angela sat on the floor near the fireplace and waited for
Terry to come back. After Terry boiled water for instant coffee, he returned,
dragging a chair behind him. He stopped a few feet from where the others were
sitting and sat down.

“You may have noticed
,
I’ve been checking the radio for any kind of signal at
least once a day.
So far, I ain’t got nothin’.
That’s
a bad sign.
Really bad.”
He looked at Jim who looked
back at him, waiting for him to go on. He looked at Angela and she had a
question, as he suspected.

“Why? We know the power is out, so
it makes sense that no one is broadcasting.”

“How much do you know about
short-wave radio?”

“Um… nothing.”

“Here’s the thing – it ain’t just
local. It’s national, and when the conditions are good, which is most of the
time, it’s international.”

“Oh. That’s bad,” she said.
“Nothing from anyone, anywhere?”

“Now you see where I’m
comin
’ from. We should be hearing something, but we’re not.
And I’m no expert, but I can only think of two reasons why.
First,
and I don’t think this is likely, but it could mean that things are bad all
over. Second, and this is what I’m hoping – the signal just ain’t getting
through to us because of electro-magnetic interference, either here or
somewhere else. If that’s the case, it should clear soon and we’ll hear from
somebody. Maybe even find out what’s going on.”

“Does this have anything to do with
the boards on the windows?” Angela asked, hoping it wasn’t a stupid question.

“It does.”

Jim struck a stick match on the
hearth and lit a cigarette. Terry thought of saying something about the
wastefulness of using an irreplaceable match while sitting next to a fire but
decided to wait until after he’d addressed the subject of their resources.

“We don’t know what’s happened with
the rest of the country, or the world for that matter, but we do know what
happened in Denver. A lot of people were killed when the bomb went off. And
even more will have died from radiation since then.”

“Like Josh and Hailey,” Angela
said, quietly.

“Yes. Like them, and worse; slower,
with more suffering along the way. But what we need to be concerned with is the
survivors. Most folks don’t have but a few days to a week’s worth of food in
their homes at any given time. When they run out, they’ll have to forage. Only
the fools will forage in town. The smart ones will look on the outskirts.
Someone really smart is gonna think of the cabins up here that are empty most
of the year, and this resort, which was fully stocked for the season.”

“So the boarded windows are to keep
people out?” Angela wasn’t sure she understood.

“Well, I’m hoping that if people
see the place boarded up, they’ll think the resort wasn’t going to open this
year and therefore doesn’t have any supplies. I know that’s a long-shot that’s
only likely to fool people not from around here, but the second purpose is to
help keep people out who
are
intent on getting in no
matter what.”

“If someone was lucky enough to survive
in the first place, why wouldn’t we just welcome them in? I understand why we
have to raid, but I’m not going to be a hoarder and a shut-in too.”

“Survival,
Anj
,”
Jim said and flicked his cigarette into the fire. “We can’t take in anyone and
everyone who comes along. The more people we have, the quicker we run out of
food.”

“But we have way more than enough
for three people to get through the winter. That means we have plenty to share
too.”

“We’re looking at more than just
the winter, sweetheart. Once that food’s gone, there’s a chance that there
won’t be any more.” Terry looked at them for a few seconds, hesitant to bring
up his next topic. “We haven’t talked about this yet, and I wouldn’t be
surprised if you two haven’t even thought about it, but if we decide to stay
together come spring, we’ll need to find a place to grow food. And we’ll need
something to eat between planting and harvesting seasons. I don’t think we have
near enough food to take us that far – if we decide to stick together.”

Angela looked at Jim. “If we have
to be all survivalist and live like this from now on, we’d all do it together,
right? It doesn’t make sense for us to split up.”

“Sure. I hate people in general,
but you guys are cool with me.”

Angela shook her head in mild dismay
at Jim’s standard line about not liking people. He had always talked as if
people were
a blight
on the planet and she never did
understand what his issue was. She knew he’d had a rough childhood, but she
didn’t think the whole world should be indicted because of a few bad people.

“I think we definitely stand a
better chance of surviving well as a group than we do as individuals, and I’d
be honored to be part of a continued group with you youngsters.”

“Good,” Angela said. “Then that’s
settled. We’ll stick together until surviving isn’t an issue.”

“And that brings us back to the
topic of other survivors who might not be as civilized as our small group is,”
Terry said, bringing them back to the unsettled issue of defense. “You guys
brought back plenty of guns and ammo from the houses that you searched for
supplies. Do you have any experience with guns?”

Jim lowered his eyelids and said in
a baritone voice, “I shot a man in Reno.”

Terry asked, “Just to watch him
die?”

“Yep,” Jim replied, hooking his
thumbs into his belt loops.

“This isn’t funny, you guys.

“You’re right, Angela. This is a
dead-serious topic. I’m sorry,” Terry said. “Jim’s a real bad influence.” He
tried not to smile.

“I’ve never shot a gun before, and
I don’t want to now. You guys can be the sheriffs and I’ll be your dispatcher,
or whatever. I’m not learning to shoot.”

“I’ll teach her,” Jim said.

Angela responded non-verbally,
pursing her lips and shaking her head defiantly.

Three days earlier

Tori and her three year old daughter Elizabeth were heading
back to Denver after visiting Tori’s sister, Kelly in Salinas, Kansas. Just
before reaching the northward curve of I-70, Tori saw a mushroom cloud rise up
over Denver. Completely freaked out at what she was seeing, but still managing
with some part of her mind to execute some form of rational thought, she took
the exit for highway 24, steering southward away from Denver.

She lowered her window an inch to
create an exit draft and lit a cigarette with a shaking hand. Her other hand
was gripping the steering wheel tightly. She fought the urge to cry. She was
horrified by what she saw outside but was also determined to maintain a façade
of normality for Elizabeth’s sake.

Her mind flashed on images of
mushroom clouds she’d seen in school films: testing on Bikini Island; bombs
dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Other than that, she’d only seen them in
movies. She wanted to think that maybe this was some new type of special
effects; something that made an image in the sky that didn’t really exist. But
she knew that was just wishful thinking.

Feeling pretty certain that it was
real because it couldn’t be anything else, she began to visualize people dying;
children playing at school, mothers strolling babies in parks, couples sitting
at tables at outside cafes. Her parents! Oh god, was California hit too?
Her sister in Kansas?
Her brother?
Wherever he was.

She hit the power button on her car
stereo and the speakers hissed, filling with the car with the sound of static.

“Mommy.
I
don’t
wike
this.”

She hit the number two preset
button and it was the same thing. She hit the other buttons in sequence.
Nothing.
She hit the power button again, returning the car
to relative silence; just the sound of air rushing past her partially opened
window.

“Is the music broke, Mommy?”

Tori was
even more scared now. She had never even considered the possibility of one day
turning on a radio and not hearing something. There were places she’d been
where all she could get was country & western or Spanish, but there was always
something. Tears slowly made their way down her cheeks and her nose started to
run.

“Yes, honey. I think the radio’s
broken.” Her voice cracked at the end of the sentence even though she tried so
really hard not to sound like she was crying. Then she sniffed and wiped her
eyes with the back of her hand.

No, dammit. I’m not going to cry.
Everything is going to be fine.

“
It’s
okay, Mommy. I’ll sing for you.”

“Lizzie, you are the sweetest,
dearest little person in the whole world. Thank you.”

Elizabeth made an exaggerated big
smile showing all of her teeth and bounced her head from one shoulder to the
other, basking in the compliment with delight.

Tori saw her daughter’s pigtails
flopping around in her rearview mirror and smiled.

“I love you, baby.”

“I
wuv
you, Mommy!”

Elizabeth sang the few songs that
she knew, over and over until she fell asleep. Tori needed to get her daughter
somewhere safe. She didn’t know if she had a home anymore, but if she did,
going there was not an option. The next thing she thought of was her parent’s
cabin near Vail. It was far enough from Denver and high enough in the mountains
that it ought to be safe. She would take Liz there and hope there was enough
food to last until… she didn’t know when. She didn’t know what would happen
next or if anyone would ever be able to go to Denver again.  For now, she
just wanted to get someplace safe and get off the highway before another bomb
exploded.

Her drive up the mountain was
uneventful. There was very little traffic and the weather was clear. Several
times she passed cars that had pulled over to the side of the road and she saw
the drivers talking and pointing at the mushroom cloud. She was tempted to join
them due to an urge to commiserate with other adults and to ask if they knew
anything, but she knew that no one could know anything yet, so it would be
pointless.

When she arrived at her parent’s
cabin, she gently removed Liz from the car-seat and carried her to the front
door.

Oh shit.

She did not have a key to the
cabin. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of that – but even if she had,
there was nothing she could have done and she would’ve come here anyway, so she
tried to think.

I can break a window. That’s my
only option.

She carefully deposited Liz on the
bench that everyone sat on to remove their snow boots before coming inside. She
walked around the cabin looking for the best window to break. She circled
around and returned to the porch from the opposite side of the cabin and
realized that the best window was the one right there in front of the porch.

Once again she mentally chastised
herself for being stupid, and then she forgave herself again. How would she
know which was the best window for breaking in to her parent’s cabin? She had
never viewed the windows with that question in mind before. Okay, now she
needed to move Liz again.

She put her daughter back in the
car-seat, started the engine and left it running to keep the car warm. She
found some large stones and brought two of them to the window, and feeling like
a vandal, she threw one at the big pane of glass, wincing as it shattered and
sounded like the loudest thing she’d ever heard.

She looked around, expecting people
to come out of nearby cabins to see what was going on, but no one did. Most of
them were used as vacation getaways and were empty in the winter unless the
owners came to ski.

Tori had made a jagged opening at
the bottom left side of the big picture window that was nowhere near large
enough for a person to fit through. She threw the second stone, aiming higher
and to the right this time.

More of the glass broke and fell
mostly inside the house. Now she had two holes in the pane and decided she
needed to break out an opening manually. The stones had done part of the job
but now she needed a stick. A short while later she had an opening she felt she
could safely carry Liz through, so she returned to the car to get her and found
the car and the car-seat empty.