Surviving the Fog (18 page)

"Thanks, man," Mike said, his voice choked
with emotion.

"Found them down at Hector’s bridge," said
Jacob, panting from the cold.  "They went into the forest to
look for pine cones."

"Oh, Jeez," Mike exclaimed.

"They were smart," Jacob continued.
 "They were following the river back.  They probably
would have made it to the dining hall."

"It's my fault," Erin confessed.  "I
remember telling them I wanted some pine cones for our Christmas
decorations.  But didn't think about that when they were
missing."

"Never mind, Erin," said Mike.  "They're
safe.  That's all that counts."

The close call got everyone's attention.
 Mike made a new rule.  Until further notice, no one was
allowed to go beyond the boundaries of the camp.  There was no
argument when he announced the new rule.  That night, the mood
of the tribe was subdued.

Mike found Hector for a talk.
 "Everything okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure, amigo," Hector answered.
 "Good call, Chief."

"I know that you wanted to go and find them,
Hector," said Mike.  "But you, Jacob, and Jean are the people
most likely to keep the rest of us alive.  I couldn't risk all
three of you.  And I couldn't say that to you in front of the
others."

Hector smiled down at the boy, and then he
laughed.  "Oh, I think there is one other person much more
likely to keep us all alive.  But I see what you mean."
 Puzzled, Mike watched him walk away.

In the close quarters, Mike often dealt with
irritations and eruptions between individuals.  Two campers,
Tyler and Gabby, seemed to have an ongoing feud.  Mike was
constantly hearing about Tyler teasing Gabby, or Gabby taunting
Tyler.  He got a little peace by threatening to tie them
together for a day.

Some birds had made their way into the Lodge
through the gap over the beams.  They were living in crevices
high in the rear of the cave.  Jean said that they were white
throated swifts.  Mike wouldn’t have cared, except for the
mess that they made on the cave floor.

One day, Mike remembered that if the old
world had not disappeared he would be in school.  Since Jean
was the oldest member of their tribe, he asked her to organize a
school.  Attendance was mandatory, he told the kids, from nine
in the morning until noon.  After that, there would be another
two hours of school, but attendance was not mandatory.  Of
course, his announcement was met with a chorus of obligatory boos,
but most of the kids welcomed the distraction.  Most even went
to school in the afternoon.  And Jean was surprisingly
effective, some even said threatening, as their teacher.

Jean was not that happy to be selected as the
teacher.  These kids could act an awful lot like, well, kids.
 Teasing each other seemed to be their favorite pastime.

“You need a haircut.  You look like a
girl.”

“I do not!”

“Do to!”

“Do not!”

“Hey!  I’m trying to teach a class
here,” Jean exclaimed.  “I need you to concentrate on wild
onions, tubers, and berries.”

“I need a haircut.”

Jean borrowed a pair of scissors, and she cut
some hair.

They had a tree for Christmas, if not a lot
of presents.  To Mike's great surprise and lasting gratitude,
Erin and her social committee presented handmade gifts to each
person in the tribe.  Christmas Day, they had a sing-along
which lifted everyone's spirits.  The night before, there had
been a lot of silent tears, and some not so silent tears as they
lay in their bunks.

Tyler and Gabby celebrated New Years Eve by
putting insects in each other’s sleeping bags which brought new
threats from Mike.  Howard and John flipped a coin to see
which couple would get privacy in their room that night.
 Howard won.  Hector agreed to let Kathy zip their
sleeping bags together for that one night.

"As long as you wear your pajamas," he stated
his condition firmly.

Kathy searched in vain for a cute nightie,
but she had to settle for her heavy cartoon pajamas.  Not
willing to take a chance, Hector wore his trousers to bed.
 Still, they enjoyed the moment when the watches turned
twelve.  Since there were many watches, and as not all of them
were synchronized, there was some dispute as to when twelve o'clock
actually occurred.

And so January arrived.  Mike had given
the kids a holiday from school, but a few days after the first of
January, some of the kids asked Jean when school would restart, so
Jean reluctantly restarted her classes.  It was cold, but the
solar heating system and the central wood fire kept it bearable in
the central area of the Lodge.  The small cave was
comfortable.  A few girls left their bunks and slept in the
central area where it was warmer.

Mike hesitated to let people use the
emergency bathroom during the day, and this precipitated a crisis.
 One day, as the Council was gathering in Chief’s Room for a
meeting, John and Desi entered obviously upset with each other.

"Chief, John and I are breaking up.  You
need to assign us bunks," Desi announced.

"Ignore her, Chief," said John.  "She's
just mad.  She'll get over it."

She whirled on him.  "I will not get
over it," she said angrily.  "You hit me!"

"I smacked you a few times on your ass.
 And you deserved every smack," John countered.

"I don't care what you call it.  You hit
me.  And for no good reason."

"Um...I need to use the bathroom," Mike said,
and he left the room.

"See?  He didn't ask anyone's
permission," Desi barked.

"He's the Chief.  Besides we all know
where he's going," John responded, trying to sound reasonable.

"Wait a second," Erin interjected, giving
John an incredulous look.  "John, you hit Desi because she
used the bathroom without your permission?"

"Yes!" Desi shouted.

"Of course not," John scoffed.  "I
smacked her butt because she didn't let me know she was going
outside."

"Ah," said Hector.  "She went outside to
use the bathroom, and she didn't tell you that she was going.
 So you spanked her for that?"

"Why should Desi have to tell you that she
was using the bathroom?" Jean asked.  "Are you kinky or
something?"

"Any time she goes outside, I want to be
informed, so that if she doesn't come back in a few minutes, I can
go check on her," John explained through clenched teeth.

"Oh," a chorus of voices drawled, and then
there was a moment of silence as the others considered John’s
reasoning.

"That does sound reasonable, Desi," Erin
admitted.

"I don't care if it is reasonable.  He
had no right to hit me.  I'm not a child," Desi responded.

"A woman's never too old to spank," said
Howard with a laugh.  He glanced at Jean who was glaring at
him, and he suddenly realized what he had said.

"Not that I believe that," he stammered
hastily.  "That's just something I heard somewhere."

"At least he had a good reason," Kathy
groused.  "It’s not like you were just accidentally,
innocently rubbing your boyfriend, and you ended up getting a smack
on the butt."  Hector winced as the others snickered.

Mike returned to the room.

"We need a new rule for everybody, Chief,"
Jean said.  "Nobody can go outside without finding someone to
keep track of how long they have been gone."  The rest
nodded.

"All right," said Mike.  "We'll announce
it tonight."  The meeting went on to other items on the
agenda.

Afterwards, John said to Desi, "I'm sorry.
 I was worried.  I love you."

"All right.  I forgive you.  That
was the third time I forgot to tell you, I admit.  You know,"
she continued.  "Mike conveniently missed that whole
discussion."

"I guess that's why he's the Chief," John
said.

In the middle of January, the temperature
plunged.  The skies were overcast and dark.  Hector
disconnected the pump, so that the hot water in the barrels was not
circulated outside.  Gradually, it grew colder and colder in
the Lodge.  The girls abandoned the upstairs rooms.  Then
the boys in the downstairs room escaped to the relative warmth of
the small cave.  Finally, the two couples and Mike admitted
defeat, and they moved into the central area close to the fire.

"I'm worried about the amount of wood we are
using," Hector said on the fourth day of the deep freeze.

"What else can we do?" Mike asked.

"Jean says that we should all move into the
boys’ cave.  I agree with her.  Whatever heat is left in
the barrels might last until this cold passes.  And we will be
huddled together.  That will keep us a little warmer."

"All right, let's do it.  And until
further notice, we'll only use the emergency bathroom.  But
keep a small fire going," Mike ordered.

Quickly the entire tribe moved into the boys’
cave.  The boys dismantled the girls’ bunks, so that they
could be moved.  Soon the small cave was crammed with bunks
and people.  There was not enough room for all the bunks.

"Double up," Mike said.

"I want to bunk with Erin," called a voice
from a group of boys.

"In your dreams," Erin retorted with a
sniff.

"Every night," came the rejoinder.

Gabby yelped as Tyler pretended to pull her
pajamas down, and there were a hundred other human interactions as
the kids dressed in all their clothes and then got into their
bunks.  They found that pushing their bunks together and
laying their mattresses crosswise allowed them to double up their
sleeping bags.  Some of the boys doubled with boys, some girls
doubled with girls, and some of the doubles were mixed.

There were twenty two doubles, once they had
paired off.  Mike found himself sharing his bag and Yuie's
bag.  This made it warm enough to be comfortable.  There
was a lot of joking, a lot of teenage sexual innuendo, and a lot of
snide comments.  Someone told a story.  Someone sang a
song.  Then, during a pause, came the sound of real music.

"What's that?" several people asked.

"It's Hector playing his harmonica," Kathy
explained.

There was silence for awhile as Hector
played.  Night came and passed.  Dawn was a drear light.
 Jacob got up, and he checked outside.

"Still cloudy," he said when he came back.
 "And it's snowing again."

There were too many in immediate need of the
bathroom to use only the emergency bathroom, so precious heat was
wasted each time a group went outside.

Mike gathered his Council together.
 "What are we going to do," he asked.  There was no
answer.

The tribe went back into the cave, and they
got into their sleeping bags.  As the day wore on, it got
colder and colder in the cave.  To avoid the danger of carbon
dioxide, Mike made everyone leave the cave every four hours and go
into the central area, while some of the kids flapped blankets to
circulate the air.  Mike and Yuie clung together that night
and shivered.

The next morning after everyone had used the
bathroom, Mike gathered his Council again.  "We'll freeze if
this goes on," he said.  "So we are going to have to build the
fire real high, even if it uses a lot of wood."

"I have an idea, Mike," said Eric.
 "What if we build a fire, and use it to heat up the barrels?
 When they are boiling hot, we can use blankets to roll them
back to the cave."

Mike looked at Hector.  "What do you
think?"

"I think that's a good idea," Hector replied.
 "I'll take some of the canvas, and use it to cover the
opening.  We'll lose less heat that way once the barrels are
in here, and we can huddle around the fire while we are heating the
barrels."

"Might as well build two fires," Jean
suggested.  "Heat up two barrels at a time, and more of us can
get closer to the heat."

"All right, do it, Hector," Mike said.

They set to work, and the activity helped to
warm them until the fires were roaring.  Hector disconnected
the barrels, and two at a time, they were rolled on to the fire.
 It took some time to get the water in the barrels
sufficiently hot for Hector to be satisfied.  They banked the
fires, then using blankets; they rolled the barrels just inside the
cave.  Hector used long pieces of timber to prop canvas
against the wall just outside of the alcove.  He hoped that
this would keep the heat inside the small cave.

It worked.  Within the hour, it became
too warm to stay in their sleeping bags.  They sat on their
bunks, much happier now.  They entertained one another and
discussed many different subjects including their favorite, the
differences between boys and girls.

"Jean, why do you think guys like caves
better than girls?" Erin asked.

"It might have to do with safety," answered
Jean.  "Thousands of years ago, when people lived in caves,
the men had to leave and hunt animals for food.  That was
dangerous work.  The men were much safer while they were in
the caves.  But women stayed in the caves much of the day
doing traditional woman's work.  I suspect that they were much
more likely to catch a disease from staying longer in cramped
confined quarters.  So for them, being out of the cave in
fresh air was probably healthier."

The hero of the hour was Eric.

"Good idea, Eric," Mike said, as he praised
Eric for the tenth time.

"Yeah, the Geek saved the day, all right,"
John agreed.

"Thank you, Eric," said Desi.  “You are
the brains in this tribe.  The next time John gives you a hard
time, tell me and you can take his place."

"Hey!" John complained.

"Just kidding, Darling," Desi responded.

The bitter cold and the dark skies continued
that day and the next, but the tribe was warm in the cave.
 Then the skies cleared, and the sun came out.  Hector
reattached the barrels, and the crisis was over for the moment.

January turned into February.  The kids
settled into a routine.  There were the usual squabbles, but
nothing too bad.  Mike finally lost his temper with Tyler and
Gabby, so he took a ten foot length of cord and tied them together
for twenty four hours.  They were stunned.