Waiting Out Winter (8 page)

Society had broken down, but not in any way Nick had ever read about in apocalyptic thrillers. Rather than turning to criminals with tribal instincts and territorial demeanors, people withdrew. They locked their doors and never came out. The only people who ever made it outside were the dead and the crazy. And Nick and Jerry, who presumed there must be others still foraging, but had stopped seeing them or the evidence they left behind. Fear had locked doors and closed hearts. No one cared to help each other, not even to rescue a frightened child from the streets. Sole survival wasn’t just an instinct anymore; it was a way of life. And as the realization hit Nick, the power went out and left them in the dark.

That was the state of things three months ago. Two months ago, the cold killed off most of those wandering the streets or lacking alternative heat sources for their homes. Nick and Jerry foraged for wood to burn in the fireplace whenever they left the house for food, often resorting to physically tearing apart empty houses to keep their own home warm. The generator they had secured back in September had been declared emergency only, since they couldn’t run down to the gas station for more fuel. They’d only used it when the temperatures dropped too far below zero to make gathering firewood possible, and even then used it only to power space heaters. The butane stove only lasted a few weeks for meals and then they began to cook over the open flame of the fireplace. On a good day, they could find some humor and consider it an extended camping trip while they filled jugs at the artesian wells. On a bad day, the house was quiet. Not even the children spoke as they wandered aimlessly through the activities of their, now normal, day-to-day lives.

A month ago, Nick had realized they were simply sitting around waiting to die. He knew when winter ended, so too would the reprieve from the flies. At the time it was mid-February, and in northern Wisconsin, the coldest part of winter. But they all knew what came next. First they would experience the false spring that could, if it got warm enough, bring flies back. That would be followed by anywhere from a few weeks to another month or two of winter, always including at least one blizzard, before true spring started poking its nose around. The flies were coming back. Nick could see it in their eyes; they just didn’t say it out loud. What they did acknowledge was the need for a plan.

The plan was simple: find somewhere safe. The problem was, with no communications left, they didn’t know where safe was. Without the television or phones or radios, they didn’t know how far it had spread or how dangerous other communities had become. They knew nothing. They based their discussions on what they did know--the tiniest danger, which posed the biggest threat.

“Even in Alaska they have a brief summer, and summer brings flies.” Jerry spoke from the kitchen as they discussed their options. He busied himself by making a list of their remaining provisions and another list of what they’d need to procure for their trip.

“Equator jumping?” Jamie suggested. Nick answered her with a blank stare. “You know, we drive to wherever winter is. North in the fall, below the border in the spring.”

“That’s a lot of traveling.” Nick tried to imagine the six of them packed into her SUV with all their supplies and provisions. “What about gas? We’d have to refuel, and that would mean getting out of the car.”

“Extra gas tanks? Refueling only in cold climates?” She stared at the ground. “I don’t know.”

“Oh hey, wait...” Jerry’s voice from the kitchen had something Nick hadn’t heard for months--hope--and Nick sat up as Jerry filled empty doorway. “You still have that trailer out behind the shed?”

“Yeah.”

“Not a problem then, and not a bad idea at all, Jamie.” He smiled and put down the pad of paper. “I’m going to need some things.”

Nick knew exactly where he was going with this thought, and as it panned out, first vocally, then on paper, and finally in the act of scavenging gas tanks from anything nearby, he wasn’t sure he believed in the possibility. Could it really be that easy? Calculating the drive to be at least a week, and more likely two, each direction, he didn’t like their odds of having enough gas and food. But the plan had given hope to both his friend and his wife, and their renewed spirit was infectious, improving the demeanor of all three children, even though Emily wasn’t old enough to understand they’d been in a bad mood. Deciding he’d rather die happy than cranky, Nick didn’t voice his objections and went along with their plan. Any plan was better than giving up and waiting for death to return with the melting snow.

Jerry spent the next three weeks welding a complex pile of tanks and tubes to each other and then the trailer, as he created a moving gas station for them. Jamie packed and shopped--if it could be called
shopping
when you take it for free from the homes of the dead. Nick busied himself by siphoning gas from the vehicles Jerry hadn’t taken the tanks from, Jerry promising to dump whatever gas was left in the generator into the tanks, as soon as he was done welding. The three of them walked in and out of the house without fear, certain there were no flies in the winter and therefore no danger. They were met with odd looks through curtains, faces pressed against barrier plastic to watch, and were sure to be the gossip of the neighborhood--if it could still be called gossip when confined to each household. Nick half expected other neighbors to inquire, if not join in on the escape plan. They did neither.

Nick felt anger building behind his fear. They were supposed to be leaving this morning. They were supposed to be safely on the road, behind rolled up windows, before the flies returned. They were not supposed to die here, at the hands of the disease buzzing from the kitchen.

He tightened his grip on the flyswatter and walked through the doorway to the kitchen. The garbage had begun to pile in the corner, the winter’s lack of flies combined with their travel preparations had taken so much of their time lately it had caused them to grow lazy. He blamed the garbage for attracting the small carrier of death that roamed somewhere in the room that was once filled with memories of his boys and their afternoon snacks, family meals, and holiday breakfasts.

The buzzing stopped and Nick froze. He needed the fly to make noise. Without electricity, without lights, he knew he’d never find it by sight in the early morning light. He never thought he’d want to hear another fly’s wings rapidly declaring their position, but he did now.

What if he hadn’t really heard it? What if the anticipation of leaving had caused a brief return of the phantom buzzing that had plagued them earlier in winter?

The buzzing resumed and Nick was torn between joy and anxiety.

It echoed oddly and Nick looked around the small room trying to make sense of the noise. When he turned to his left, it got louder, so he cautiously took two steps toward it.

The buzzing stopped.

“Damn it.” His grip on the metal handle of the swatter tightened in frustration and the wire dug into his flesh. He was about to declare himself one of the insane when the buzzing began again and he pinpointed its location--the sink.

Walking slowly across the linoleum to stay quiet and be able to hear the soft echo of the noise, he made his way to the stainless steel double basin on the left wall. The window above it had been sealed months ago, the plastic covering the wood appeared intact, the duct tape around it unblemished. Where did the fly come from? Up from the basement again? Snuck in with them? Mysteriously born of the garbage pile up? Did it matter? After months of surviving and weeks of planning, death had found a way back into his house.

He stood on his tiptoes and peered into the sink from several feet away, but couldn’t locate the fly in either side. He drew closer and the buzzing stopped again. He paused. He was a patient man--he had to be, to keep his sanity while locked inside for over half a year--and he could wait until the fly made noise again.

He relaxed his muscles and lowered himself back to his flat feet, as his eyes flitted back and forth between the side Jamie used to wash and the side she had declared for rinsing only. The faded, hunter green dish strainer in the sink just barely showed over the edge, a relic from when life was normal. Life was anything but normal. If it had been normal, there would be dishes in the sink, a washcloth hanging over the faucet, and a half-empty container of Dawn on the back edge. Instead, dishes were cleaned with baby wipes and then stacked on the counter--the drainer sat alone in the sink, forgotten. When the buzzing started again, Nick realized it was coming from the second side.

A quick step forward, swatter poised overhead, and he looked straight into what was supposed to be Jamie’s sanitary side of the sink. The silverware attachment was empty except for a corncob skewer--there always seemed to be one left behind when the dishes were put away. Inspecting the strainer from various angles, Nick could see no fly anywhere and braved moving the strainer. He slipped the flyswatter through the wire slots of the strainer and lifted it from the sink slowly. The buzzing stopped and he abruptly put the strainer down to regain full use of the swatter.

He held his breath and listened. One bite was all it took. One bite to ruin the lives of his wife and children. One bite to make surviving winter a moot point. He stared at the strainer and dared it to grow wings and bristly whiskers and a sharp scissor-like mouth to infect him. The sink drain answered him with lightly echoing buzzing.

The pipes? Was the fly somewhere in the pipes, and the lack of electronics humming in his house made it so quiet he could hear it through the metal pathways traversing behind walls and under floors? Nick peered down into the drain, swatter held near his head for quick intervention.

He immediately sprang back to an upright position. Disbelief swam across his face and he looked back down to the drain, the hand holding the swatter hung at his side. The latticed plastic and wire weapon forgotten.

When he looked up again he laughed. Out loud. Without reservation.

He laughed so hard the sound reverberated throughout the house and he knew he’d awakened the rest of the house by the faint swish of opening doors and confused morning voices.

There in the sink below him, the fly--the little black bringer of fear and destructor of society--had been trapped by the tiniest spider Nick had ever seen spin a web. Unused for so long, the drainer had become the perfect place for a web, and whatever tiny bit of moisture may have been on the metal of the sink, was the perfect lure.

Death had been caught, for the moment.

“What’s going on?” Jamie stared at him as Nick held his stomach. It didn’t matter if the peal of laughter had been genuine humor or just an uncomfortable relief, it had been a long time since he’d laughed like that and his muscled ached as if he’d just run a 5k marathon with a hangover.

He met her eyes briefly before he tossed the unused flyswatter at Jerry. Was Mother Nature taking over? Were there enough spiders? Nick smiled at them both, grabbed the box of supplies off the counter, and headed toward the door to load it into the SUV.

“Winter’s done. It’s time to go.”

THE END

Author Note: This story was spurned by the fact that the DNR did indeed attempt to kill off the tent worm invasion a few years ago by releasing an obscene amount of black flies. Just like the story, they released them a touch too late and rather than fixing the problem, they added to it. While there were no deaths in Northern Wisconsin from biting flies, there was an awful lot of itching, complaining and even cancelled vacations because people couldn’t keep them at bay with even the strongest of bug repellants. It’s the only year I remember actually looked forward to winter, knowing the flies would finally be gone.