Surrender the Sun: A Post Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller (5 page)

“Are the trees going to crash on the house?” he asked after the rushing sound subsided.

“I think it will take more than that to knock these big trees down, but a few may fall anyway. That’s how nature is. The weaker ones fall so that they can make room for new growth.”

She poked the bacon strips around in another skillet, noting that it was the only protein they had in the house besides half a jar of peanut butter. She would save some of the bacon just in case they needed to stretch it out, and she wouldn’t give up the bacon fat either.

Once breakfast was made, she called Ben to the table and poured warmed maple syrup over his pancakes. He eagerly dug in.

Maeve also ate a pancake, and they each had two slices of bacon. After breakfast, she packed up the leftover pancakes and saved them in the fridge along with the extra bacon. She usually threw out the bacon grease, but this time she kept every bit of it in a bowl. She wasn’t sure why. Her grandmother used to save bacon grease, but Maeve had never used it for anything before. She figured if her grandmother kept it she probably used it to cook with, and since Maeve had few supplies, she was saving everything possible.

After breakfast was put away and the dishes were done, Maeve scoured the house for candles, matches, flashlights, and anything else she could find or thought she might need if the power went out. In all, she had three decorative pillar candles and few books of matches from various hotels from years past as well as a butane torch lighter she used for the fireplace that was nearly empty. She also found a flashlight under the kitchen sink and another one in the garage. She wasn’t sure how old the batteries were—that was something Roger always took care of. She hadn’t gotten around to being the man of the house yet. Every time Maeve went into the garage, Roger’s scent that permeated everything within would send her into a three-day grieving spell. As a result, she avoided the garage as much as possible.

While Ben made car noises with his handheld game, she stood back and tried to assess how many hours of candlelight they had. “Probably a couple of days if we only use them at night,” she said to herself.

“What, Mom?” Ben asked.

“The candles. We have enough for probably a few days, and we have about three or four days of food hopefully…” she trailed off.

“Do you think that’s enough till the storm passes and we can go to the grocery store?”

“Sure,” she said, being optimistic for his sake.

“First, we have to wait for someone to come and fix our battery, and then we will go to the grocery store.”

That’s when the next gust of wind rattled the house. So strong was the force, that like a child playing with a toy town, it also took down several trees and power lines and, along with them, the joyful tune coming from Ben’s racing game.

Deep in the Kootenai National Forest, a few residents lived isolated lives among the tall cypresses, winding streams, and wildlife that roamed among them. They were part of their surroundings, unlike those men who lived on paved streets. They knew of one another and also knew where each of their neighbors resided, tucked away in hidden coves among large boulders the glaciers abandoned years past or near veiled alcoves. There were at least five hundred acres between each of them. A few of them visited one another when the need arose, to either trade something or when they had a task for more than one man, but mostly they remained alone, and those that required the isolation were left alone out of respect.

Mark Bishop was one of those men. He’d never imagined his life taking this turn. He’d started out in a pretty standard household: one mom, one dad, and a sister, growing up in a little town named Post Falls, Idaho, not far away from his current residence.

After graduating high school in 2014, Bishop headed to the University of Washington and spent four years in the rain and muck of Seattle. Then he graduated in 2018 with a shiny new bachelor’s degree in atmospheric sciences and promptly fled the wet area before the ever-present mold could form on his certificate.

He’d applied for jobs a few months before graduation and instead landed a great internship with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Maryland for a congressional communications position. The position entailed studying oceanic and atmospheric research and giving reports to Congress. But that’s as far as he got into a routine life Prewar. Things were changing.

In the spring of 2018, China attacked Japan over the disputed Senkaku Islands. An all-out war converged in the East China Sea by air, land, and water. At the time before the attack, the number of active duty members of the US military was at an all-time low since the Cold War. When the US joined the fight to protect Japan’s interests, the draft was implemented immediately to bolster its numbers when the military troop casualty rate suddenly skyrocketed. The country needed more able-bodied men, and Bishop was one of them.

Bishop was drafted immediately, as his age and fitness score made him a perfect candidate. Instead of heading off to Maryland for the internship, he was measured for a head-to-toe individual protection combat uniform, taught how to use an M4, and deployed to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. This sudden change in his life happened so quickly that he found himself shooting at the enemy only after bullets whizzed by his head as he wondered how in the world he’d arrived there in the first place or how he’d ever survive.

In the end, the task was simple: kill or be killed. That’s what it all boiled down to. Gun down, bomb, or massacre as many of the enemy as possible before they killed you and your buddies. He found he was pretty good at the killing part with his M16. Because of that, and his degree, he ended up progressing through the ranks rather quickly and soon found himself directing, coordinating, and planning attacks.

That’s where he met Roger Tildon. They were both part of the same unit and fought together many times. Both of them saved the other’s life too many times to count. Four years of battle turned into six and then eight, and Bishop was up for recommission one day when he walked into his major’s office on orders.

Standing in front of a man with gold oak leaves on his fatigues, Bishop waited in the sparse room as the senior officer typed away on the rugged laptop before him on the metal desk like some secretary at the IRS during the last day of an audit. Bishop was finally left at ease and asked to sit on a nearby hard metal chair. Bishop thought the furniture of the room was from some other era, possibly the fifties. Nothing had changed in decades.

Finally, the major stopped typing and looked up from his computer screen. Like the room, the officer himself looked like he belonged to another decade altogether. His jet-black hair with gray highlights was slicked back and plastered to his head and was flanked by silver-framed glasses and matching silver eyes. “It says here you’re ready to recommission.”

Bishop didn’t respond because there was no question to the statement.

“You have a choice, you know? I’ve looked at your record, and you’ve served your time here, Captain Bishop. You’ve done your part. We’re winning the battle and hope this will all be over soon. You can go home. We’re starting troop withdrawal anyway.”

Home?
Some part of him remembered the concept, but with bullets tearing soldiers down next to you, you quickly forget what home is all about. Instead, you focused on the survival stuff.
Home
was something that could always wait.

The major continued to scan through Bishop’s long list of achievements. In times past when he was sent in for this kind of review, there was no question
if
you should remain. It was just
sign electronically here
,
which was just a swipe of your thumbprint. Turning the screen to him for his signature, the major waited for Bishop’s response.

For his part, he sat there staring at the screen. Never before had he let his mind wander to this moment. He was certain that if he did, it would distract him, and distractions got his men killed. Clearing his throat, he braced his hands on his knees but never took his eyes off the screen.

After observing Bishop, the major removed his glasses and directly stared at Bishop.

“Captain, you’ve served your country well. It’s time you went home and used that degree you earned eight years ago. You’ve done your job. Your country is thankful for your service.” He thrust his hand out to Bishop then.

Bishop looked at it, and just before too much time lapsed into awkwardness, he shook his hand with a firm grip and then swiped his thumb.

He was going home. The problem was, Bishop had no idea what that meant anymore.

Unlike Roger Tildon, Bishop had never dated in college and never had a long relationship with a steady girlfriend before he was drafted. His family was destroyed. His father had died of a heart attack shortly after he’d been drafted, and his mother and sister lived somewhere with her new husband in Seattle—a place Bishop had no desire to revisit.

Roger had two more years to go. And when Bishop told him he was being shipped back, Roger went too, but only for a short time, to visit with his family on leave. He would return for two more years of battle. At least that’s what they thought at the time.

Both of them flew home into Spokane International Airport. Roger went to his family waiting for him at the baggage claim. He’d twirled around a lovely redhead in his arms and then lifted a boy waiting for him who resembled Roger in miniature right down to the brown eyes. “Bishop!” Roger called as he was leaving through the exit. “I want you to meet my family.”

Waving, Bishop said, “I’ve got to run. Someone’s waiting. I’ll catch up later.”

Bishop left and took a cab all the way to Post Falls, Idaho. Once there, he stayed in a hotel for a few days, literally remaining in the hotel room. The trip through the airports and travel was too much. Every loud noise made his pulse race. He found himself reaching for his nonexistent M4 consistently and finding he wasn’t even armed for the first time in eight years. The absence of a weapon, on his person, was unnerving.

He finally caught up with Roger a few days later in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, just a couple miles from Post Falls. They went fishing in the glistening streams. It was quiet in the woods; only the noise of animals alerted him. He felt peaceful there. “What are you going to do now, Bishop? Now that you’re
free
?” Roger said as if he’d served a prison sentence instead of a stint in the military.

“I, ah, haven’t really thought about it, yet,” Bishop said as they walked through a shallow stream keeping their gear high above their heads and out of the water.

Roger stopped midstream. His voice, loud over the din of rushing water, “I know you, man. You need to be needed. Why don’t you settle somewhere nearby and keep an eye on my wife and kid? I’m sure you could get on with Idaho State College…maybe teach the weather to some naïve college kids or something.”

Like yesterday, Bishop remembered the warm sun on Roger’
s face through the trees. He’d only smiled and nodded to Roger’s suggestion. He wasn’t sure about the ‘need to be needed’ part, but he certainly liked the area.

Later, Roger showed him where he lived.

Two weeks after that, Roger was gone again, and Bishop found himself camping in the same forest Roger introduced him to. After he opened a storage unit to put his spare belongings in, he never left.

“Mom!” Ben shouted from her bedroom where he was snuggled up under her thick down comforter to keep warm.

“Yes, dear?” she replied as she looked through the pantry in the kitchen, searching for something to make for dinner sans the power.

“When is the electricity going to come back on?”

“I don’t know, honey. I’m sure they’re working on the lines. There’s a lot of snow on the ground so they have a hard time repairing them; it might take a few days.”

“It’s getting colder,” he said in protest to her answer.

Walking back through the house toward the living room, Maeve looked at the smoldering embers in the fireplace and then glanced to her decorative brass firewood rack and said, “Dang it. We’re out already. I wish that wood fairy would come back. Oh well, so be it. I shouldn’t depend on anyone else anyway.”

She climbed the stairs to her bedroom to try and comfort Ben and glanced out of the living room window to see a path going through the freshly fallen snow leading to her front porch. Her pulse quickening, she walked over to the window and looked around. After scanning all around her immediate area, she glanced directly underneath the window. To her surprise, Maeve saw what she had just wished for: a small pile of firewood neatly stacked and ready to be carried inside.

“So he makes day deliveries as well. Hmmm. Why didn’t he knock on the door?” Looking around at the swaying trees, she worried about him out there being exposed to elements just to bring her firewood.
He could have at least come in for a cup of coffee to warm up.

“Mom? Can I put on more clothes?” Ben yelled down the stairs.

She laughed out loud. She had a history of trying to keep Ben in his clothing—he always argued with her when the time came to wear coats and gloves and other outerwear. The boy would often want to wear shorts to school in the dead of an average winter like some of the other locals around town who wore Bermuda shorts in January. She’d never understood the logic in that. “Of course,” she yelled back upstairs.

As she met him upstairs he zoomed down the hallway to his own room—to procure another sweatshirt, she imagined. He’d opened his bedroom door, and the air in the hallway was like ice, having suddenly displaced some of the warmth from upstairs. Soon Ben reemerged holding a large navy sweatshirt from his drawer and closed his bedroom door. “I’m going to warm this up by the woodstove before I put it on.”

“OK, knock yourself out. Just don’t put the shirt on the woodstove, please. The last thing we need is a fire.”

As he descended the stairs, she couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps they should move into the living room downstairs and block off all the upper bedroom doors to conserve heat. With that idea in mind, she began collecting blankets, pillows, and what she needed from the bathroom for both her and her son. Closing the door behind her, she glanced at the photo on her nightstand, in a way saying goodbye to Roger’s image for a few days. Perhaps an absence would do her some good.

She carried her load down the stairs and dropped the bedding on the couch, then put the bathroom essentials into their proper place in the bathroom on the main floor. “We’re going to close off the upstairs for now to conserve our heat down here. It’ll be an adventure,” she said to Ben, who was looking at her for an explanation. “Like camping out.”

“OK, that’s a good idea, Mom.”

He was game. She hoped she could keep up the spirit of adventure because something told her things were about to get really tough. She’d foolishly limited their food supply by negligence and routine. So now she tried to look ahead to prepare for what might come. What worried her most was what would become of them in a few days once all the food ran out. What if she couldn’t get to the store?

They certainly couldn’t walk that far. They could last a few days, and she’d already decided she would skip her own lunches to conserve food for Ben. In the pit of her stomach, she was afraid she’d already failed her son.

How foolish I’ve been. I might have doomed us already.