The Darkest Winter Read online

  I closed the drawer of the hutch and turned for the staircase.

  Jackson stared down at the satellite phone standing upright on the floor.

  “Will you still stay in Whitehorse if you don’t hear from him?”

  He looked into the fire. “Yes.”

  I nodded, but I hated to think in a few weeks we’d part ways[SF46].

  “This place in Whitehorse, what makes you think it’s even still there? You said it’s been years since you went, and with all that’s happened—”

  “It. . . has to be,” he said stubbornly. Jackson scratched the side of his face, his beard a few weeks unshaven.

  “Why is it so important to you?” I asked, nudging the line of things we didn’t discuss.

  “I never said it was important, it’s just where we agreed on.”

  “Isn’t it though?” Reluctance was Jackson’s other expression I knew all too well; the way his jaw clenched and he took a deep breath before giving a vague answer.

  “It’s where my wife and I went on our honeymoon.”

  And there it was. The truth, only awkward because we went out of our way to never speak about his life before.

  “I understand.” I’d assumed it was sentimental to him, otherwise why be so dead-set on going there instead of a safe zone that boasted community and protection, a place with other children, doctors, and people of skill and import. “I’m glad you’ll have a small piece of her back then.” Maybe it would give him the peace he’s been unable to find these four months and accounting.

  I continued to the stairs. “Night, Jackson.”

  “Night, Elle,” he said, barely audible, followed by the sound of a screw top. I told myself his drinking would only be worse if he knew the truth, and then I hated myself even more[LP47].

  Chapter 21

  Elle

  It had been nearly five months since the outbreak. I no longer kept track of the days we’d been in southeast Alaska, but I knew how many nights the six of us had made it without freezing and how many days it had been since we’d seen other people—186 and 97. [LP48]

  Alex was a different story. He’d been keeping track of every day in the beginning, waiting for his eighteenth birthday. But the longer the power stayed off and law and order went ungoverned, he let it go, openly at least. He no longer worried about the foster care system and what freedom would look like one day, he already had it, in a manner of speaking, anyway.

  I’d been tracking his birthday ever since. Just because I wasn’t a fan of mine, didn’t mean we couldn’t celebrate his.

  I straightened and peered around at Slana. It was barely a blip on a map, but Jackson had known about the ranger station and some prior squatting issues in the bush that the Troopers had to deal with a while back. And he’d been right to choose this place for us; we couldn’t have asked for more in our small, stowaway. We had a general store, mechanic shop, clinic, solar company to pillage, and a ranger station all within a few miles, and all were open to our scavenging and perusing.[LL49]

  “We got dinner!” I whirled around with an armful of firewood as Sophie lifted her backpack.

  “And lunch,” Alex added as they made their way to the house. He’d become a smaller version of Jackson over the months; a rifle slung over his shoulder when he was out around town[LP50].

  “We just ate breakfast,” Sophie reminded him.

  Alex grinned. “And I’m hungry again.”

  “Me too,” I added.

  Sophie smiled, but it was different for her than it was for him[LP51]. Though I knew she cared for Alex, like any friends who had been through what they had, she kept her distance[LP52]. Alex often noticed it too.

  “How was the market?” I asked. “Crowded?”

  Sophie shrugged. “Not too bad, I had to fight a lady for the last bag of tater tots though.” She laughed, and Alex’s smirk grew big and white.

  Sophie had become our resident chef with Alex’s urging, and he was her helper on some nights. It kept her connected to her parents and her life before; and it gave her a sense of purpose, which was something we all needed, especially when the nights were long and dark.

  “Is that what’s on the menu?” I asked, my stomach rumbling. “Tater tots?”

  “Not tonight. Alex convinced me to make everyone’s favorite.”

  “Yum, spaghetti?”

  She nodded. “With garlic bread and veggies.”

  “For the kids,” Sophie and Alex said in tandem.

  Everything was frozen, boxed, jarred, or bagged, so I had to hand it to them for changing it up as much as they could.

  “I can’t wait, I’m starving,” I said, by stomach voicing the same. “Let me know if you need any help.”

  “No, thanks,” she said with a laugh. “I’d like there to be enough for everyone when it’s finished.”

  “Ha. Ha. Hilarious.” I walked toward the firewood stack I’d started on the porch.

  “How was your run?” Sophie asked. “Did you beat your time?” She and Alex followed me over.

  I stacked one log on top of the other. “Yes, actually, but not intentionally[LP53].”

  “Maybe Hartley will have more avid runners to compete with,” Sophie said and stepped by me into the house. “I’m gonna get started.”

  I smiled and waited for them to pass. When Sophie asked me three months ago why I ran in the mornings, I’d told her it was difficult for me to be idle, which was true, but not for the reason she assumed. Running, I’d realized, sated the burn. “Oh, wait. Where are the kids?”

  Sophie looked at Alex.

  “With Jackson at the shop,” he said. “He was putting fuel stabilizer in the carriers today to take with us.” Alex nodded to the back of the house where the water supply was kept. “I’ll get you cooking water, Soph,” Alex offered.

  “I’ll tell Jackson to wrap things up.” I dropped the [LP54]

  “Sounds good,” Sophie called, and they disappeared into the house.

  If Beau and Thea were with Jackson, it meant they would be covered in grease by the time they got back to the house. I peered down the road, toward the mechanic shop.

  Confident I’d gotten a decent amount of energy out today, I hauled one last load over to stack, and headed out to the shop.

  I hadn’t told the others about what happened to my physiology in the beginning because I didn’t want Jackson to know. He would put the pieces together and know what I’d done. And the last thing I wanted to do was scare the kids. As the weeks went on, the burn became something manageable and easy enough to hide, even if they all assumed I was a germaphobe and compulsive half the time[LP55].

  I followed a trail of little footsteps trailing behind bigger ones and smiled to myself. Even if Jackson wasn’t very paternal, the kids liked him. Beau especially, who still had hope that Jackson would decide to go with us to Hartley Bay[LP56].

  I paused mid-step, noticing other prints in the snow. Animal prints—wolf prints. Jackson had pointed some out to me before. At first, I thought they were old, but that they were in the neighborhood at all was unnerving. I jogged toward the shop, hoping Jackson would tell me to calm down and they were old, then chide me for not listening in when he was teaching the kids about game tracking.

  I weaved through the abandoned cars that littered the street and parking lot and stopped at the shop to catch my breath[LP57].

  “Hey,” I said, hurrying up to him. Jackson straightened from bending a piece of metal in a clamp, his nose red and icicles on his mustache. I tried not to smile as I glanced around for the kids. “Where are the kids?”

  His brow furrowed and if I wasn’t mistaken, his eyes were too glassy for this time of day. He peered around. “They went to play. They’re probably building a snowman or something.”

  “Or something?” I turned on my heels, scanning the snow-covered parking lot. “Jackson, I saw wolf prints out there.” I peered out at the empty streets beyond the shop. Slana was a small town before, but here it was a vast desert of hidin
g places and dark corners[SF58]. Anything could be lurking. “Thea!” I called, heart racing.

  “They didn’t just wander off,” Jackson uttered behind me, but I called for the kids again and hurried around the other side of the building. “Beau—” I stopped in my tracks. Beau and Thea were sitting on the curb, staring into the tree line. I was about to sigh with relief, when I saw two wolves standing a couple yards away, staring back at them.

  “Wolves!—Jackson—” I ran out there with flailing arms, shouting and clapping as loud as I could to scare the wolves away. “Thea, Beau—come here,” I ordered, my eyes never leaving the wolves as they retreated into the trees.

  “Beau,” I said, reaching for his hand, and I pulled Thea against me as we hurried back to the shop. Jackson stood tall and formidable with his rifle, but it was too late. The wolves were already gone.

  When we were safely inside, I crouched down to look them in the eyes. “Never wander off on your own again,” I told them. “Do you understand? You know how dangerous it is out here—how many bad people there are, and those wolves are hungry. Do you hear me?” I could finally see the fear registering in their wide eyes.

  “Do you hear me?” I said more calmly.

  Thea’s lip trembled, and she nodded, then Beau, if a bit reluctantly. I pulled them both against me and squeezed them close.

  “I don’t think the wolves would’ve hurt them,” Jackson said.

  I stood, whipping around to face him. “Oh really? And that was a risk you were willing to take? Wild animals—pack animals who hunt, hanging around the kids. You don’t think that’s something we should be a little worried about?”

  His lack of concern made my blood boil. “What the hell were you thinking, Jackson, letting them go off on their own like that? We’ve survived flesh hungry lunatics, a fucking virus that killed just about everyone else, so wolves are okay?”[SF59]

  When he said nothing, I took a step closer. “You’re drunk aren’t you?” I took Thea and Beau’s hands in mine. I already knew the answer. I could smell it on him and see the blur in his eyes, even if he was an expert at hiding it[LP60].

  “I’m not one of the kids, Elle. You don’t get to scold me.”

  I didn’t care if his voice was loud and angry. I glared back at him. “Then stop acting like a mopey teenager all the time.”

  “Hey! I didn’t ask for this,” he shouted, pointing to the kids and me. “I didn’t ask for any of it. I said we could travel together, I didn’t say I would play house with you.”

  “Play house?” Unsolicited tears burned the backs of my eyes. “You’re such an asshole.”

  “That’s right, I am. I told you from the beginning I was no role model, and you still came, so screw your self-righteous bullshit.”

  I nodded, too livid to say anything else, and too wounded by how easily he could disregard us.

  “Come on you guys,” I whispered. It was all I could manage.

  Both of them looked up at me, then back at Jackson, but they didn’t protest as we marched back to the house.

  Before Anchorage, I never hoped for anything. I lived in an existence where life sucked and you did what you could to get through it with a scrap of sanity. Now, hope was like a drug I couldn’t shake, and I needed to come to terms with what I needed to do, not what I hoped would happen.

  I couldn’t worry about me, the kids, and Jackson on top of everything else. Once we got to the Yukon, we would go our own way and not look back, it would be for the best.

  I repeated it over and over until I believed it was true[LP61].

  Chapter 23

  Jackson[LP62]

  Five months ago, I felt like a shitstain on God’s boot heel and I wanted to die. Hell, I thought I was dying. But here I am.

  The edge was a precarious place. If you paid too much attention and you risked the view, but ignore the dangers and you could fall. If your intention was to fall, like me, the catch was whether you could. I had my days, days where I couldn’t imagine going any further, but there were better days when the void without Hannah and Ross, even the knowledge that my dad was no longer breathing, could be tempered with a little help to dull the pain.

  With Ross alive, it had felt like I had a purpose. Someone to wade through the fallout together; someone to commiserate with and figure shit out after it all fell apart. Without him, I was alone and it was a daily struggle to remember why being alive was lucky.

  For the first two weeks, I’d waited for him to call me, but he never did. When he didn’t show up to the roadhouse in Copperville, I began to think the worst, but some voice in the back of my mind kept telling me he’s alive. He’d always had my back and I always had his—he didn’t know how to fail at anything, which gave me hope. But time was corrosive, and without any signs left behind in our mapped trek to Whitehorse, it was hard to find the smallest remnant of possibility in a minefield of shrapnel. It grew harder to breathe.

  I inhaled the harsh, cold air and peered into the utter darkness. There were no stars in the sky and gratefully there was no wind either. I walked down the road with my thoughts and the sound of my boots crunching in the snow.

  Arctic nights had a scent: the sharpness of evergreen and a freshness so pure and indescribable, it numbed the inside of your nose and lungs with each inhale. I’d come to appreciate it while the others slept, a routine I’d fallen into each night: a walk—or trudge—and occasionally a half bottle of whiskey.

  There was a reason I hadn’t taken a drink in eight years until the night I did. I never wanted to think about that night again, but that’s the thing about haunting memories, they were like shadows; they moved around, impeding your view. Other times light warmed the dark places and basking in it felt like a betrayal. Elle, Alex, Sophie, Beau, and Thea were not part of the memory, they were part of the reality, and it felt wrong.

  Tonight, my bottle remained heavy and untouched. I resented Elle for making me feel guilty when I’d promised her nothing.

  I stopped in the driveway and peered up at the house. Had they built it in a conventional neighborhood it would look like any other house with windows and doors weathered by time. But in Slana, with only a handful of houses scattered across acres surrounded by woods, it stood out from all the rest. Five hearts beat inside.

  Shaking my head, I walked to the back porch. When my mind was clear, it wandered, asking questions I couldn’t answer. Were we alive because of our genetic makeup? Pure luck? Or was it some form of twisted fate that two siblings survived when none of us had family at all? Were they lucky, or were we? If Hannah had survived, would she be like me or like the woman at the outpost who’d lost her mind and lived off human flesh[LL63]? Nothing was certain, everything felt wrong, and I was tired of feeling lost.

  A wolf howled off in the distance, and as I opened the backdoor another wolf howled back in answer. I stared out at the mountains surrounding us. Packs hunted together, protected one another. I couldn’t protect my wife and child; how would Elle and the kids be any different? I didn’t want the responsibility, and as determined as I was to drink the bottle in my hand to prove it, I hadn’t taken a single sip.

  The floor creaked as I made my way through the house. We’d been preparing to leave since we arrived, knowing the day would come when the snow stopped falling and the ice melted. I could leave tomorrow and Elle and the kids would have what they needed to stay here a while longer, and what they’d need for their journey to British Columbia. They would be okay without me.

  I lifted my rifle strap over my head and leaned my gun against the mantle. I didn’t bother lighting a fire or taking off my boots and jacket as I sat there in the darkness. If I was lucky I might get a couple hours sleep, but I doubted it.

  Sometimes Hannah was in my dreams. Sometimes I saw Molly and got to hold her in my arms, chubby cheeks rosy with life. Other times I was burying them in the cold, hard ground. Every dream ended with an aching loss, but I woke to a house brimming with life. Like grief, sometimes it overwhelmed the s
enses.

  I closed my eyes, imagining a life when I slept in silence and woke up to it too. If I left, Beau would wonder where I was when he came downstairs to help me with my morning broadcast to Ross, which would inevitably go unanswered. Sophie might make an entire pot of coffee not realizing I wasn’t here.

  What had I been thinking, the kids playing with wolves? I had been so certain and it was beyond careless. Even through Elle’s fury, I knew she was disappointed. Her hands fisted at her sides when she as she trying to control her emotions. But along with fury and disappointment, her green eyes had glisten with fear, and I hated that it would be because of me.

  I scrubbed my hands over my face, wanting to laugh at the irony. Every reason I needed to go my own way was exactly why I wanted to stay.

  Chapter 24

  Elle

  I relied on the sharp sting of morning air in my lungs and the chill it left in its wake. It wasn’t just a salve that soothed the fire, a welcomed burn in my muscles that made them ache with exhaustion and I felt like at least one thing might still be in my control.

  “Life’s harsh, Eleanor,” Jenny used to tell me. “Hope and wishing are pointless. Suck it up and do something instead.” That was the last thing she said to me before she ran away nine years ago.

  In my youth, I thought her advice was simple cruelty, and yet those same heartless words continued to pop into my head, and I wished she were here to say them again. To help me feel stronger in each moment of weakness.

  I pushed harder and ran longer until my thighs and chest screamed for me to stop and I felt the fire subside. But I wasn’t running only for temporary relief; I ran for clarity. I ran to expel the gnawing uncertainty of what the next twenty-four hours would bring. I hadn’t seen Jackson when I woke, but that wasn’t entirely unusual. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he left in the middle of the night. He wasn’t a man of many words, and it would’ve been easier that way.