The No Where Apocalypse (Book 1): Stranded No Where (9 page)

“I wondered if you’d poke your head in on us,” he continued, already dragging me towards the shack. “Nice to see a familiar and generous face again. You gotta meet the wife; she’ll be dying to thank you.”

It felt funny letting my guard down so quickly. One minute I was approaching, crouched in the brush, hand on my weapon. Now I was being brought inside for cookies and coffee.

“Marge,” he shouted as I felt the warmth rush out the opened door. “We have a visitor. Come meet mister…” He paused, looking funny at me. “You know, I don’t think we ever introduced ourselves. I’m Warren Luke.”

“Bob,” I answered, staring at the small but homey interior. The insides were as blue as the outside, if not a little brighter. Two children appeared from another room. A girl I’d guess in her young teens, and boy no older than eight.

From the same room entered his wife, Marge. She did not possess the same look of amusement as her children. They may have been happy to meet some stranger Dad drug in off the road, but not her.

“Warren,” she said in a low tone. “Are you sure this is safe?” Her eyes studied me as if I were Charles Manson himself. I noticed her nervous hands clutching at her apron.

He pulled me forward further into the warm room. “This is the man who gave us the deer two weeks ago,” he stated in a boastful tone.

Her eyes opened wide flooded by an honest smile. “Oh!” she exclaimed, rushing to hug me. “Thank you so much, sir. We were so hungry and down to nothing. You saved us.” The children moved closer.

I wasn’t comfortable being deemed their savior. For the most part, I gave up the hindquarter grudgingly. But they made it seem as if the messiah himself had just stepped into the room. I half expected someone to offer to wash my feet.

“You have on pink boots,” the young daughter said, eyeing them with a grin.

“I’m not from here,” I admitted finally escaping their embrace. “I’m from Chicago. I just got stuck here when things went down.” I peeked at her smiling face. “And you got purple hair.” Her smile broadened.

“Do guys wear pink boots in Chicago,” the boy asked. I couldn’t tell if he was sincere or making fun of my unique winter footwear. I went with the former.

“I was unprepared,” I stated, being led to a chair by the man I now knew as Warren. Little did I know that I was unprepared for the news they had for me.

Day 65 - continued - WOP

They were from Covington, just up the road some 10 miles. Warren, Marge, Violet, and Nathan — who preferred to be called Nate. Warren and his wife never offered their ages, but I took them to be in their 40s. Violet announced her 13
th
birthday would arrive with the first day of spring. I joked that might be a while off, maybe even June. The whole family laughed.

Nate would be eight any day now. But that was the problem. None of us knew what day it was anymore. I knew we were just over 60 days into this mess, whatever it was. Back at the cabin, I’d been keeping a daily journal of weather and game observations.

It struck me and my new friends as funny how in 60 days we’d lost touch and given up with most of the trappings of our former world. Cell phones — dead; internet — gone; running vehicles — almost nonexistent. Not only did it not matter what day of the week it was, it no longer matter the date on the calendar. Or the time on the wall (they still had a working wind-up clock, though it may have been off by an hour or two).

Their story went, as mostly told by Warren with a few tidbits added by his wife, that they were sound asleep all safe in their home when things went quiet. The first few days passed without incident. But as with any panic, times worsened quickly.

By day four, or five if Marge was to be believed, most of the food for sale in Covington was snatched up. Hoarding kicked in quickly. That left the haves and have-nots. The sheriff and the mayor worked diligently to provide for all, but storm clouds hovered on the horizon.

“Somewhere after three weeks in, a group showed up on foot,” Warren continued, his face pained as his sad story progressed. “They were armed pretty well, handguns and shotguns mostly. They damn near drank the place dry. When things started getting out of hand — like looting and robbing — the sheriff tried to step in. They shot him dead in the one bar on Main Street.”

The air in the cabin cooled as Marge wrung her thin hands, pacing behind her husband. She picked up the tale. “The mayor went to ask them to leave. They strung him up just outside of town, on a pole that goes across the road stating, ‘Welcome to Covington.’ They said if anyone cut him down, they would kill the person.”

I contemplated the ugly unruly scene. “Didn’t anyone take up arms against them?” I asked. “Fight force with force?”

“People were pretty scared at that point,” Warren admitted. “No one really wanted to die. I guess we weren’t that desperate yet. But when they kicked people out of their own homes and tossed them out in the street, the whole thing seemed hopeless. The consensus was to just let them take what they wanted and hope they moved on.”

“Then about a month ago,” Marge continued, “they started going house to house, taking whatever food and guns they could. We never had any weapons. Wish we had now.” She took a spot next to her husband, neither looking into the others’ eyes.

“We left in the middle of the night shortly after that,” Warren stated. “Packed up as much as we could in four backpacks, two suitcases, and a rolling cart Marge used for gardening. We knew these places were down here. Figured no one would have taken them yet.”

The children hung near their respective parents, Violet on her mother’s shoulders, young Nate on his father’s lap. They had the faces of lost people; scenes I had only ever witnessed in pictures from wars. But they weren’t some far off foreign speaking family. They were my neighbors, and this was our country…what was left of it.

Day 100 WOP

Three feet of snow covered the landscape outside my drafty, but warm, home. I’d used Dizzy’s roof rake nine times already since the snow started in earnest. I wondered if there were nine or 90 more rankings needed for the season.

As best I could tell it was Christmas time. My adventure began in mid-August when the power went out of everything. My tally said it was three months and ten days later — or thereabouts.

For dinner, I allowed myself an extra ration of stew. Venison boiled in water, a touch of flour added, with carrots, beets, and potatoes for extra nutrients. It wasn’t my idea. Dizzy was the one who handed over his recipe happily.

Along with his cooking secrets, he allowed me to steal 50 bottles of the sacred brew he hoarded. Dizzy was a lot more resourceful than he appeared. His sheds held stockpiles of canned foods, bags of dried fruits and vegetables, and a fair amount of candy. In his back bedroom, never used for sleeping, he stored beer and water…mostly beer.

If I said he had a pallet of the brown liquor, I might be underestimating. Fifty bottles didn’t put a dent in his stash. And he invited me back whenever the weather allowed for 50 more, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon. Not in this weather.

Allowing myself to think of Shelly back in Joliet, tears came. Three Christmas’ together and now one apart. I always thought that when the lights went out she headed for her parents, some five miles across town. I hoped she hadn’t waited too long. No doubt, the Chicago area got dicier than here, and much faster.

If she were lucky, and at home with Mom and Dad, she was most likely safe. But that was something I’d have to wait another five to six months to find out for myself. Fall’s attempt to get home had ended in disaster. Any type of effort in the winter was strictly out of the question.

My beautiful pink boots, while warm, were two sizes too small when I donned enough socks to keep my feet warm. If I only wore one pair the bitter cold nipped at my toes within minutes outdoors. The downside of that was my feet sweat faster and two pairs of socks were too tight and allowed for no circulation. End results: cold feet, again.

One warm jacket was all I took from Dizzy before the snows came. As long as I kept it dry, that was fine. And since I spent the majority of my time inside, tending the fire and the stew, I was okay with just one outer garment.

I had enough food, water — as promised — lie everywhere just outside my door. Two things I was short on and either could kill me: Company and wood.

To say a man goes stir-crazy without companionship after 30 days is like claiming a person needs air every few seconds. It’s just a given.

I’d spent years either in school, at work, or hanging out with my buddies watching some game. My solitude mostly consisted of three partial deer seasons. At most that meant six hours of silence for two days per year.

Even here in No Where (yes, that’s the official name I’d given this place, I had a lot of free time to come up with it) I hadn’t gone a week without speaking to another human being. Then the snow began. And like any good gift it just kept on coming.

When it wasn’t snowing it was blowing. A 10-inch dusting, as Dizzy calls a snowfall that minor, pretty much shut you in. Twenty inches? Get the roof rake out. You can practically hear the roof trusses bending. Snows stops and you’re fine? Hardly.

The snow abating meant the wind was ready to increase. And not some minor 10 to 15 mile an hour breeze. We’re talking winds that shook every window in my ever-diminishing abode. Each day inside brought the walls a little closer I noticed. And when the wind gusted up over 40 miles an hour, the walls hardy slowed it down.

Usually late in the night, I’d hear the wind abate. And that’s not good. That meant cool crisp Canadian air had settled in.

One morning, I arose and found the actual air temperature minus 35. That’s 35 below zero. Even a roaring fire would hardly warm my hovel at that point. But there was good news about the cold, it didn’t usually last too long. Just a day or two.

And then the snows returned.

Day 100 WOP

Wood was quickly becoming an issue. Most of the cut wood still lay at the back of the cabin. For some reason, I thought it was convenient enough back there. Oh sure, I hauled a couple dozen armloads to the front side, and another two or three inside when the first heavy snow hit. But the bulk of my supply was out the front door and 50 feet around in back.

Ordinarily this wouldn’t have been an issue. I could just slip on my coat and a pair of boots and fetch wood as I needed it. Winter made it a problem, though.

Aside from the 10-foot drift that blocked my front door one morning, I discovered something even more disturbing. The south and north ends of the cabin liked to buffer the winds just enough to allow snow to pile up on the corners. And not small piles.

The southern route had a drift that reached past the top of the roof — a good 20 feet — and extended another 50 feet out into the formerly open yard. The northern drift was twice as bad and made me depressed just thinking of it.

As such, hauling wood became an all day ordeal. That was after two days of unburying it from another massive, well-packed drift of winter fun.

Another problem came to me just before Christmas. My woodpile was dwindling faster than I had anticipated. As much as I wanted to wade through the snow to go tell Dizzy he had been correct, I decided to use my waning energy and gumption to split more wood. At least while it wasn’t snowing, or blowing, or 40 below zero.

That had been one day in the past month.

Given the amount of snow resting on top of my ready to use wood, it was hard to judge exactly how much I have left. But I knew there wasn’t a whole lot left buried under the remaining snow. That left me with two possibilities.

First, I could cut more wood. I had been bright enough before the snow began to pile up to bring the ax and maul in the cabin. That would save me a whole lot of digging out back if I could even find the pit my grandpa had made.

On the other hand, I could just burn less wood. Up to that point, I had kept the fire in the small wood-burner going at a fairly decent clip. I figured if I was going to be alone in the woods all winter I needed to at least be comfortable. But now I saw the error of my ways and began cutting back.

However, I still needed to cut more wood. For that I needed a break in the weather. Watching another storm whip up the white scene outside my cabin, I knew that cutting was several days off…at best.

Day 112 WOP

I waited almost two weeks for the storm to abate. Well, first the snow, then the wind, and finally the cold.

Tools in hand I made my way outside. The temperature wasn’t as bad as I had expected. After I unburied the old-fashioned thermometer and let it adjust to the air I found it to be a balmy 18 degrees…above zero. Bonus!

It doesn’t take much movement to warm up when you have on half the clothes you own. Within minutes, I had my jacket open, stocking cap tipped back, and could work for a while without my gloves.

Piling four 12-inch sections of chainsawed oak before me, I lifted the ax. The first thump from the first swing sent shivers into my hands and up my arms. It was as if I was trying to split concrete instead of wood. Shaking away the pain, I drew the ax again.

With that thrust, I noticed a small fracture in the wood. The sound of the oak splitting cut the otherwise still morning air like a gunshot. A few more pounds and I had several smaller pieces of wood separated from the main stump. Progress was slow and painful, but still moving forward.

It took no time to work up a good sweat. I knew I hadn’t been at it for an hour, yet my coat, gloves, and hat all sat on the bench near the front door. I may have needed them at first, but now they were unnecessary options.

I ran out of energy quick, far too quick. Only sustaining on stew and rationed water left me lethargic and dehydrated. My water intake was low I suspected. The effects of dehydration hit me with a dizzy spell and I took a short break to drink some water and catch my breath.

Who knew chopping wood was such hard work? I never had, though I also had never so much as lifted an ax before my forced confinement here in the north. If some fashionable gym down in Chicago really wanted the latest trend that worked every major muscle group, I had a program for them.