Daunting Days of Winter (7 page)

“Relax, dear. I want him to think a little on his walk home.” Frank’s tone was icy cold. He turned back to Kyle. “Eat out much?”

“I don’t know. I guess if you count lunches, probably seven, eight times a month.”

Frank’s eyes bugged out. “That’s at least $100 a month wasted. Just as bad as cigarettes.” Frank took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Look, you can tell by looking around that this stuff is important to me. Promise me something.”

“Sure, what?”

“You’re young. Promise me that when things come back around, because they will, and you’ll still have lots of life to live, promise me that you’ll think a few years down the road. It doesn’t have to be another EMP. It could be a pandemic, or a war, or a solar flare. Shoot, Mother Nature has half a dozen things up her sleeve that she could use to really mess us up. Promise me that you’ll get ahead of the game.”

“Okay, Frank, that’s enough. Let poor Kyle up for air.”

Frank grunted. “Wait here, Kyle.” He got up and walked through the far door.

Brenda smiled weakly at Kyle. “Sorry about that. He took a lot of grief from everyone about all this,” she motioned around the room. “I think he wants to be able to gloat. Don’t take what he said personally.”

“He is right, you know,” Kyle said, looking Brenda in the eyes. “I’ve thought about it a lot. There’s a ton of stuff I could have done differently. What you’ve got is way out of my league, but I could have been a lot more prepared.”

“Well, you’re still alive, so you must have done something right.”

“I don’t know. God must like me, or something. By all rights I should be dead.”

“You didn’t come up here to be lectured, Kyle. Is everything okay?”

“Things are good. I actually came to tell you about a New Year’s party.”

Kyle was filling Brenda in on the details of the party when Frank returned holding a plastic baggie filled with white powder. He tossed it on the table in front of Kyle. “Take that,” he said. “It’ll help you out.”

Kyle looked at it uneasily, reaching out to touch the bag. The consistency of powder was a little finer than table sugar.

“That’s okay,” Kyle said. “I appreciate it, but I think I’ll pass.”

Frank looked puzzled. “Take it. It’ll help you get through this. If you have younger kids, it’ll help them, and the older, weaker folks too. But you don’t have to share if you don’t want to. You can use it all yourself. It’s up to you.”

Kyle was shocked at Frank’s suggestion. “Hey, really. I appreciate the gesture, but I’ve got to say no. I admit I tried weed a couple times when I was younger, but I stayed away from the hard stuff. It’s not my thing.”

Frank’s expression switched from curiosity to amusement as Kyle spoke, and he began to laugh loudly. Kyle looked at Brenda, who was covering her mouth. He could see in her eyes that she was laughing as well.

“I’m guessing that’s not what I thought it was.”

Frank shook his head, his laughter calming. “This is to make your water safe. It’s bleach, or actually it’s swimming pool shock -- calcium hypochlorite. Same thing as bleach, but this will last forever. Liquid bleach degrades fairly quickly; this won’t. I wrote the mixing instructions on a paper in the bag.”

“So it’s not crack then, huh?” Kyle confirmed, embarrassed.

Frank shook his head. “No drugs here, Kyle, at least not that kind. Did you tell Brenda about your party?”

CHAPTER 8

Monday, January 9
^th

Deer Creek, MT

David pulled the collar of his jacket tight around his ears as the wind blew cold and steady, as it so often did at night up in the observation nest, pelting him with flecks of ice scoured from the side of the mountain. The militia had constructed an observation post on top of the western mountain, where they had the best views of the valley below, and David’s assignment was to scan the area for threats. The outpost was crude, consisting of a shallow, twenty-foot trench with dirt and rocks piled around it to block the wind and shield the observer. At night, and on especially cold days, a tarp could be drawn over the top of the trench as a shield from the wind and to retain heat from a small fire the sentries kept burning by their feet.

Once he was resituated, David grabbed the binoculars with his gloved hands and scanned the roads below him. He had a good view of the freeway, from the east side of Missoula all the way to Clinton, but the view of the smaller road on the south side of the river was partially obstructed. From the east, he could see the road clearly until it was almost directly below him, then an outcropping of rocks and some trees blocked the view for nearly a mile, until just a couple hundred yards from the militia house.

David swung the binoculars from east to west, then back east again, pausing on every rock, shadow, and tree that caught his attention. He noticed movement along the far side of the river and twisted the focus knob to sharpen the image. A buck stepped gingerly onto the ice and snow, dipping its head down to the water, then raising it up quickly, looking back over its shoulder. David watched it turn from side to side, then dash off across the freeway and up into the trees on the facing slope of the opposite mountain.

He continued to swing the binoculars east, past the bridge, along the road, past a couple of abandoned homes on the far side of the river, and then into the town of Clinton. His gaze lingered on the town, wondering which home belonged to Amy Carpenter, the girl he’d met the week before when she’d come with her family, and most of the residents of Clinton, to Deer Creek’s first annual New Year’s event.

The party had started at noon and lasted about 4 hours, with food, games, a children’s production of
Toy Story
, dancing, trading, and a lot of socializing. David had noticed Amy during the games. They had been on different teams during the relays, and she was one of the few teens who had kept up with him. During the last hour of the party, a well-intentioned band from Deer Creek had provided music, and David had asked Amy to dance, giving him an opportunity to learn her name and get to know her.

The fire at David’s feet popped, and he felt a coal bounce off his pant leg. He pulled the canvas back to check the fire, then grabbed a piece of wood, knocked a chunk of snow off of it, and carefully set it on the fire. Sparks danced upwards, and he waved them away with his hands while watching the tiny embers die in the cold wind. On nights like this, the fire was the only thing that made the lookout post bearable. He couldn’t complain too much though, because he’d volunteered for the assignment, and he did like that he didn’t have to sit around and talk with the old men in the house, or walk twenty plus miles each night.

So far there had only been three nights that David hadn’t had to make the climb to the outpost: twice, when it was snowing too hard to see anything, and once, when the temperature was ten below zero, and it was highly unlikely that anyone would attack under those conditions. As David watched the fire to make sure the wood caught, his thoughts drifted back to Amy. She was fifteen years old and a year ahead of him at the Catholic High School. Her hair was dark brown hair, her eyes brown and very pretty, and she was more shapely than most of the girls her age. She was slim, like everybody else these days, but not so skinny that she looked unhealthy. Her hair had been pulled back in the standard ponytail, and she had smelled really good, a pleasing combination of soap and good perfume.

The piece of wood caught fire, and David arranged the canvas back over the hole before picking up his binoculars and training them back on Clinton. Amy had described where her house was, and David thought maybe he’d found it. In the light of the full moon, he could see smoke coming from what he thought was the Carpenter’s chimney. He smiled to himself, trying to imagine what her house looked like inside.

A twig popped somewhere behind him in the trees. David spun around, startled by the sound which was amplified by his fear of being ambushed, or, the more likely event, being eaten by a bear. He put his gun to his shoulder and aimed it towards the woods, leaving the binoculars swinging from the strap around his neck. Unexplained noises were pretty common, something he should be used to, but they never ceased putting him on edge. He waited cautiously, but heard and saw nothing, so turned back around.

He trained the binoculars on the road just west of Clinton and continued to scan towards Missoula. He could see a figure walking on the Deer Creek side of the river, one of the militiamen on their rounds. He knew they were militia because most of them walked the same path every time, despite instructions to the contrary. The militia house came into view, along with the bridge, the trees and rocks below him, the road on the south side of the river, and a strange, dark shape. He swept past the object before its strangeness registered, then quickly swung back, trying to spot what had caught his attention, but it was right at the point where trees obscured the road.

He climbed out of the foxhole, ran a few steps west, and refocused on the road below him. Just as David zeroed in on the shape, it seemed to break apart and move towards Deer Creek. He only had an instant before the trees blocked his view again, but it had looked like a group of people. He wasn’t positive though, because he’d seen it so briefly. It could have been deer, geese, or even some of the abandoned dogs that were packing together.

David’s heart pounded as he stared down at the road. He swept the binoculars further west then back to where the trees blocked his view, but saw nothing unusual. He grabbed the gun he had been issued, an AK47, and four thirty-round magazines, and ran west along the ridge, trying to find a better vantage point.

Tripped up by a rock in the darkness, David fell to his knees, dropping his gun and bruising his shins. Recovering quickly, he picked up his weapon, ran a few more feet, and aimed the binoculars back down on the road. What little extra bit of the road he could see was empty. Directly below him, he knew there was a plywood sign, painted with a warning:

Guarded community!

Do not approach after dark, with weapons,

or in groups larger than three.

Violators will be considered hostile
.

Similar signs were posted on the bridge, on the far east end of town along the river, and south of the Shipley Ranch, facing the old gravel road coming down from the mountains.

David ran back towards the trench. He looked through the sights of the gun and found the truck hood that hung between two trees in the backyard of the militia house. With limited communication, if the lookout couldn’t give a warning in person, their signal in the event of an emergency was to shoot the hood hanging in the yard. David had made this shot many times during training and knew that the hood rang like a bell, audible all the way to the far end of the community. He’d also been reminded many times that when he shot it, there would be fifty-three militia members running his direction, ready to fight.

David swore under his breath and lowered his gun, all thoughts of Amy long fled. He heard a sound, maybe voices, and froze in place, terrified that people were coming up across the top of the ridge. He waited, straining to hear anything that was out of place, but heard nothing. He ran down towards the militia house, crouching low and carefully avoiding making any loud noises.

He’d taken this path dozens of times and knew it well, but it had never been this dark, and never under this kind of stress. Part way down the hill the trail led south, away from the road, so David cut north, off trail, towards the road. It was dark in the trees, but his eyes had adjusted enough to the moonlight for him to be able to jog, dodging branches and rocks as he ran. His heart raced, both from the running and from the fear that what he’d seen was something threatening.

A thick cluster of trees lay ahead, and he slowed to push through it, sliding through the branches as silently as possible. He was almost through the trees when his left foot fell out from under him. David clutched for branches as he began to fall, realizing, to his horror, that he had emerged through the trees at the top of a fifty-foot cliff, a sheer drop to the rocks and boulders below.

He grabbed desperately for the branches, branches that scraped at his face as he fell, his left foot sliding over the edge, his right leg still on top. His momentum carried him forward and downward, and he gasped, panic stricken, as rocks and pinecones tumbled down the cliff, bouncing with echoing cracks off the boulders below.

As he continued his slow motion slide over the precipice, his right hand grasped a fat tree root curled tightly around a weathered rock, and his right leg wedged between a tree trunk and a small boulder, bringing his fall to a halt but still leaving him dangling precariously over the edge. He let out a deep breath and opened his eyes as sharp pains shot through his right leg. Terrified, he held tight for a second, then used the root to carefully pull himself back up, finally rolling back over the edge into the trees, with sweat rolling in cold beads down his forehead.

He groped in the darkness for his rifle, which he’d dropped near the edge. His right hand bumped against the barrel, and he snatched it up with hands shaking so hard from the near fall that he could hardly get his finger on the trigger. He edged back towards the cliff top, this time much more carefully and slowly. From this new vantage point, he could see the militia house to his right and the road down below, and he watched the road, searching for movement.

Something shifted in the trees below, and he leaned forward, tense, only to see a deer scamper off towards the river. David waited and watched for what seemed like an eternity. His rapidly beating heart had slowed, but his bruised leg throbbed, and the chill of the winter night was beginning to work its way through his thick, sweat-soaked jacket. He shifted side to side on still shaking legs and swung his arms back and forth to get the blood flowing. Finally convinced that it had been a false alarm, David was about to retrace his steps back to the top of the hill when he definitely saw movement by the river. Looking harder, he saw spotted two figures crouched low and trotting towards the bridge. He scanned the road directly below and saw two more figures moving stealthily towards the militia house with what appeared to be weapons in their hands.