The Darkest Winter Read online

  I lugged on my pack and checked my compass, ammo, and secured my knife in my boot, my pistol in my belt, and the rifle on my back.

  Alex came around the front of the truck, leaning against the plow. “If the weather stays this nice, we might have a decent trip.”

  “Don’t jinx us, kid. That’s the last thing we need.”

  He grinned and patted his jacket and pockets down. “I think I’m good.”

  “Then, let’s hit the pavement.” We followed the road into town. “Hold your rifle,” I told him as I pulled mine off my back. “Keep the safety on, but hold it. I want anyone who sees us to know we’re armed.”

  “Have you run into any survivors on your other scavenging trips?”

  He shook his head[K76]. “No, but I’ve only gone on two and they were closer to Slana. There’s not much in the way of supplies out here, so other folks might have the same idea we do now that the weather is better. And there are only six people I trust, you guys and Ross, everyone else is dangerous.”

  The sun glared off the snow-lined gutters, all of it melting into slush beneath our feet.

  “Did anyone ever shoot at you—when you were a Trooper, I mean?” Alex whispered.

  I glanced at him. He was alert, his eyes flicking around the street, toward the town. I thought back to the meth lab I’d stumbled across, one of a few my fourth year on the job. An addict in need of a fix had nearly blasted me and I’d been ruining his score by showing up in the dead of night, out in the middle of nowhere after someone in the house called in an assault and battery charge. “Yeah, but only once, and Ross had my back.”

  “You worked together?”

  “We worked similar shifts.” I scanned the sporadic businesses lining the side of the road, mostly warehouses and junk yards. “If he was in the area, he’d show up if I needed backup. I did the same.”

  “Sounds gutsy. You’re a pretty intimidating guy. I wouldn’t mess with you.”

  I chuckled. “It helps when you’re suited up and have an armory on your person.”

  Alex laughed excitedly. “I bet.”

  “When you work alone a lot, you rely on yourself. You learn to have an air of confidence you never had before,” I told him. A flagpole came into view. Gold stars against a dark blue field hung as the state symbol at half-staff, just like I’d seen on most flagpoles since Anchorage. It was a tribute from all the dying to the already dead, and they would likely hang that way forever.

  “Do you want to check this high school?” Alex asked. It was a sprawling tan building with light blue trim that looked untouched from the outside. “They’ll have a nurse’s office. Maybe something we can use in the science class.”

  I beamed with pride. “I never would’ve thought of that.” I pointed with my chin. “Lead the way, hotshot.”

  We crossed the street toward the mushy baseball diamond, the batting cages wet with melted snow.

  “Did you like being a Trooper?” Alex asked. “Cause I used to hate them.”

  “I bet you did,” I muttered.

  He glanced at me and smiled. “It’s a job that seems like it has everything though—the adrenaline rush, the brotherhood, the prestige.”

  “Oh, and suddenly you care about prestige?”

  “Definitely not. But the comradery would’ve been nice.”

  “Sometimes, but it was a lonely job too, kid. It’s not all honor and bravery and saving the world one kitten at a time. But it was all worth it. Not only did it give me a purpose I didn’t know I needed with a group of guys I could count on, it pissed my dad off, so it was a double win.”

  Lifting my gun, I squinted toward the side entrance, looking for movement.

  “What did he want you to do?”

  “Mush dogs.” I look at the giant Husky emblem on the side of the building.

  “You didn’t want to?”

  I looked at him. “What’s with the twenty questions?”

  “I don’t know, just curious, I guess.” The doors were unlocked, which wasn’t surprising given how suddenly everything happened, and I opened the door as quietly as I could. While the air outside was brisk, inside it was stagnant and almost humid. I motioned for him to check the office down the hall while I went past a hall of lockers, toward the classrooms.

  The walls were dressed with colorful dance banners. Bulletin boards were cluttered with hockey game schedules and haphazardly hung flyers with club announcements, the January production of Fiddler On The Roof, all of it moldy from the moisture[SD77] in the building.

  Walking through a place so silent my boots echoed through the halls made the hair on the back of my arms stand on end. They were once teeming with voices but the halls would never be full again. It was one thing to think about billions of people dying; it was a gargantuan, sweeping number that painted an extraordinary picture. But thinking about the individual lives that ended in a matter of days and hours felt heavier than a simple number, even one so immense.

  These kids were complaining to their parents about homework and planning what to wear and who to ask for the Turnabout. They had grueling hockey practices and test to study for, and all their sleepless nights and worrying was for nothing. Every argument with their parents was wasted breath, just like my arguments with my father had been. Neither of us got what we wanted in the end. We’d resented each other all our lives for nothing.

  Alex walked up behind me. “Nothing in the principal’s office,” he said.

  I peered in through the window of one closed door, seeing math formulas I didn’t understand scribbled on the whiteboard and kept walking. “To answer your questions,” I continued, looking in through another window. “My dad was a selfish son of a bitch who practically abandoned me after my mom died. I owed him nothing, so I did my own thing. While I don’t regret being a Trooper, I get why he wanted me to follow in his footsteps. It was how he met my mom and it was important to him.”

  Alex looked through a door window across the hall.

  “That makes sense, I guess.”

  We moved in tandem down the hall; Alex checking the right and me checking the left. “Yeah, well, I didn’t care back then. Now, I wish I’d gone about things a little differently is all. The old man died thinking I didn’t give two shits about him.”

  “Hey look, a vending machine[K78],” Alex said. “We could take a treat back for everyone.”

  “Have at it,” I told him, eyeing the walls of an open classroom. “Make sure you get a Milky Way for Elle,” I said absently and stepped inside. Photos of students lined the walls, candid shots of students huddled around lab tables and posing with teachers. There were action shots of green and white uniforms mid-motion and hockey helmets. It was a time capsule and all of it was already deteriorating. For the first time I considered what the footprint of our existence would look like in ten years.

  Someone wrote a production timeline on the whiteboard, and the yearbook was slotted for print this month. I picked a camera off the teacher’s desk, wondering what photos were still on it.

  “Jackson,” Alex hissed. I glanced behind us at the empty hallway to make sure we were still alone and walked over to the doorway he peered through. “It’s the nurse’s office.”

  I waited for him to go in, gun in hand. Alex made a sweep of the room, and I followed in behind him, knowing it was empty. The room was tiny, large enough for a cot, a stool, and a cabinet of supplies for the typical fever and sore throat. Or maybe not so typical.

  Wrappers and torn boxes filled the wastebasket, the shelves disorganized, and a tan blanket made the cot look like someone had slept it in. The supplies weren’t ransacked, but they’d been used. Some over-the-counter antacids and anti-inflammatory bottles were open, and a disposable thermometer was out on the counter. The common flu they’re prepared for hadn’t been so typical in the end.

  “Get the First Aid kit, and the disposable thermometers,” I told him, eyeing what was left on the shelves. I grabbed suture scissors, gauze, and a bottle of Advil and put
them in my backpack. I smashed open a locked cabinet to find the special and more urgent treatments. Luckily, none of the kids had chronic ailments or allergies I knew of, but I grabbed the two EPI pens, sample inhalers, and what I thought might be the nurse’s pain pills. It wasn’t a lot, but it was better than nothing.

  A crash echoed somewhere in the building and Alex and I froze. I listened hearing nothing, but it was time to move. I nodded for the door, pulling my gun from my holster before I swept the hallway again.

  There was a snarl in the distance, and as I turned the corner, met by a wall of windows that faced a courtyard, the tables still peppered with snow. I saw the dog’s wiry tail first, then saw a pair of dirty leather boots sticking out from behind one bench. I held out my hand to stop Alex as he came up behind me. The dog tugged, and the body moved, and I turned away.

  I could’ve scared the dog away, but there was no point. These people had been dead for months, and their ice capsule was melting. Soon every animal, wild and once tamed, would know it.

  Chapter 31

  Elle

  The “constructive web” are the strands that represent pathways of child development . . .

  Candlelight flickered across the page as I scrolled through the Developmental Science book I’d found in the bookcase. Scouring the house for any and everything that might be useful in understanding what was happening after what happened with Sophie seemed the logical next steps, especially since Googling was officially archaic and impossible.

  . . . responsiveness to emotion and support determine a child’s capacity for resilience. All of which depend on a variability in sequence, synchrony, and developmental range. Some children are more responsive and can process what others cannot. Many children can “bounce back” because their “constructive web” is still being developed.

  I considered the way a rubber band twists and bends under pressure. Then about Beau and Thea who both survived the outbreak, yet had no symptoms like Sophie and me, that I knew of.

  The most basic question was why some of us were alive and others weren’t, even strong, young, healthy people didn’t make it. If we couldn’t even answer that then the rest would be impossible. Could the powers be gender and age related? Were the lunatics that walked the streets a sign of what might happen to us[SF79]? I didn’t feel like I was losing my mind, yet.

  I pulled the glove off my hand and stretched my fingers. Physically there was nothing wrong with my hands, but I could feel it inside. And if the Coast Guard or Thomas—or any other crazy son of a bitch—could’ve done what I could do, I would be dead. So why was I different?

  I closed the book and leaned back in my chair. Nothing in an old science book would explain what the hell was going on. Exhausted from thinking about it, I drug my hands over my face. The warmth of my fingertips against my skin was a pleasant change to the soft leather that had become an extension of me. I stared at them, seeing what I’ve always seen. Hands that had clicked thousands of photographs, adjusted shoulders and hair. They’d nearly frozen in the snow waiting to take the perfect sunrise over Harding Icefield.

  Now they did otherworldly things, and it weighed heavier than usual and I needed sleep.

  “Elle?”

  I spun around. Beau stood at the bottom step, his hair mussed from sleep.

  “What is it, bud?” I asked, grabbing a blanket from the couch to wrap around him. I might not have needed the extra layer but without the warmth of his bed, he would. I knelt down in front of him, careful not to touch his skin as I realized my gloves were on the table. “Bad dream?”

  He shook his head. “I have to tell you something,” he said. “It’s a secret.”

  “A secret?” My mind spun with a dozen possibilities. He could see things too, like Sophie. He could feel things or light things on fire. He was the one who ate the last of Alex’s Oreos. “What kind of secret?” I asked.

  “It’s about Thea.”

  “What is it?”

  A distant rumble approached caught my ear, and I shot to my feet. It was an engine, but not the tinny sound of a snow machine. It was a truck, a big one.

  “Beau,” I whispered as it drew closer. “Go upstairs. Put out the fire in the stove and wake the girls—be quiet, okay?” I looked from the door to him. “Stay in the room and don’t come out. I’ll be up in a minute.”

  All remnants of sleep were gone, and fear quivered in his blue eyes. He wanted to protest, I could practically see the words pursing his lips, but he did as I asked and scurried up the stairs.

  The people outside had likely seen the smoke, it’s why they’d come, but I grasped to a flailing shred of hope they hadn’t.

  Blowing out the candle, I hurried to the window and pulled back the blackout drapes. I peered outside at the clear night. The moon cast a blue sheen across the snow, and I could make out two human outlines a few houses down. Any reassurance I might’ve grasped hold of that it was Jackson and Alex vanquished. Both silhouettes were of men, big men and they were searching for something. Another man stepped out of the shadows and stood down the street from the house, facing me, like he could see me through the window. My heartbeat trebled.

  They come with mal intent, I could tell by the grin on the man’s face as he watched the house, appraising it. Looking for a way in.

  Mind whirling, I grabbed all the coats from the rack and ran up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time until I was in my room. My pistol was in my hand in seconds, and I ran down the hall to the kids’ room. It smelled of fire smoke, and the three of them were awake.

  “Soph,” I said, urgent but quiet.

  “What do they want?” she hissed as I shoved the jackets at the kids.

  “I don’t know, but I need you to be calm and to listen okay?”

  She nodded warily, her eyes opening wide and saucer-like in the moonlight.

  “You know where the shotgun is. Get it. Load it—I want you to arm yourself and put on your jackets because we will have to leave. Grab your bags, and when you have your things and the gun, I want you to barricade yourselves in this room until I come for you.”

  I wasn’t sure if Sophie was nodding or shaking.

  “Sophie—”

  “I got it.”

  “Soph,” I said, willing her to hear the gravity in my voice. “If something happens to me, you take the kids down, over the balcony—be careful—and take the Expedition straight to our meeting place, okay? Jackson will know to look for you there.”

  “Elle—”

  “Please, listen.” We’d discussed it all before, but in the moment’s urgency, I needed her to focus. “Follow the map, just like we’ve gone over and over. It’s imperative, Sophie. It’s the only way Alex and Jackson will find you.”

  She nodded again, her eyes glistening and my throat tightened. She ran out of the room for the shotgun and I hurried to the window, peering out at the road. He was still standing in the middle of the street, staring at the house. What the hell was he doing?

  Suddenly, he disappeared into the shadows. “I know you’re in there!” he shouted. “I could smell you a mile away.”

  “Get your boots on,” I told Thea, whirling around. “Soph,” I bit out as she ran back into the room, gun in hand. “Keep that gun fixed on this window and shoot any of them that come into view.” I didn’t know what they were planning but a slug to the leg or chest would slow them down enough for me to get a decent shot.

  Her eyes widened, but she nodded without hesitation.

  I ran down the hall back down the stairs, using the kids’ terrified whimper to fortify my resolve to kill those mother fuckers.

  I needed my eyes on them first if I had any hope of taking them down. With sheer determination unlike anything I’d ever felt before, I snuck out the back door, quiet and careful, as I listened to approaching crunches in the snow.

  It was biting cold out, but I barely noticed as my heart raced and my body felt aflame with adrenaline.

  The men laughed by the trucks as if th
ey didn’t care if I knew where they were or if I could hear them. It was likely a trap, and I refused to take the bait. Using the station wagon blanketed in months’ worth of snow and the foliage grown in around it, I hid from view and held my breath to listen.

  “You can go back and tell the rest about it.” I could barely make out their outlines through the trees. It wasn’t enough to get a shot without having to leave the cover of the station wagon.

  “They are women in there, and children.” The man that was standing in the middle of the road stepped out again. “I can smell their fear.”

  “Yeah, but how many are there?” another asked. I needed the others to step out so I could have a shot, and so Sophie could.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you walk in and see!” I said as loud and confident as I could. “We won’t hurt you.”

  His sneer was visible in the moonlight and his eyes glistened as he searched the outline of the station wagon for me. “I wondered why the scent grew stronger.”

  That he could smell me or was crazy enough to think he could, made my stomach churn.

  “You assholes having a hard time understanding me, or is that you fear women and children?”

  Mr. Sneer was the leader, I could tell by the movement of his hand as he none so slyly motioned for the others to stay where they were. That was one thing I was learning about the crazy survivors who thought they were so smart—they were overzealous and distracted easily.[LL80]

  “If you drop your weapons we won’t kill you,” I told them. “But leave now and promise not to come back.”

  Mr. Sneer’s grin widened. “Oh, we have to promise, huh?” He stepped closer, intrigued. “I will promise you a lot of things,” he said. “But it won’t be to never come back.”

  The men in the shadows chuckled, and I could hear footsteps like they were pacing back and forth, itching for chaos and bloodshed. Whether that was the truth or the story I made up, I used it. “I think you’re scared because you don’t know how many of us there are. You’re worried you’ll die at the hand of a bunch of girls.”