Snow & Ash: Endless Winter Read online

  I gave Dad an uncertain smile, not sure what the gift was and he just laughed. He walked over to a huge wall mounted TV and stereo and picked up a stack of DVD’s that had been wrapped with a ribbon and handed them to me. I stared blankly at each DVD as I shuffled through them.

  “I know how much you miss our old world so I set this room up like the dance studio you used to go to. You can watch the videos to keep learning and AIRIA has more advanced training vids in her databanks. You can keep learning ballet and any other style you want! Happy Birthday, sunshine!”

  I gritted my teeth and forced out one word.

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? You love to dance! That’s all you ever wanted to do before. You wanted to be a professional dancer!”

  His face was filled with confusion and all it did was make me angrier. How could he think that I would want to keep training to be a dancer? I let the DVDs fall from my hands to the floor.

  “Dance is DEAD just like everything else in the world!”

  I spun on my feet and rushed out of the room. It was many years later before I ever went back in.

  He let me sulk and pout for a few days before he dragged me out of it. I was flopped out on my belly on my bed with the iPod blasting in my ears when he strode into my room and pulled the plug. I flipped over in outrage until I saw he had on his “I mean business” face.

  “Listen Sky, I know this has been hard on you and I understand why you wouldn’t want to keep up with your dancing. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything that’s happened and I’m sorry you had to let go of your dream but this isn’t going to make it better. You have to channel your sadness, bitterness and anger into something else or it will eat you alive. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. After some of the things I saw on deployment, well, it’ll eat away at you if you let it.

  So, dance is dead. Let’s try something else. Get up, wash your face and meet me in the back. I think I have something that’ll help a bit.”

  He walked out without another word. I lay on my back staring up at the ceiling in misery. I couldn’t think of anything that would make me feel better except for everything going back the way it used to be but after a few minutes curiosity got the better of me so I rolled off the bed and followed him to the back rooms.

  I saw him at the far end of the cavern before he disappeared through a door. I had been in and out of all the rooms off the cavern and almost all of them were empty shells but after the work he did on the work out room I guessed this would be new too. I peeked around the door and sure enough he had renovated this room too. It now had three lanes divided by raw plywood with a waist high counter nearest the door. The far end had stacked bales of hay with what looked like sand bags behind them. Three paper targets were attached to the hay. One was a traditional bull’s-eye target and the other two were human silhouettes. I edged in further and saw the counter was full of weapons. Handguns, rifles, a crossbow and archery bow were laid out as well as boxes of bullets and different types of arrows. He spoke without turning.

  “I can’t give you back the world we lost but I can give you the skills to survive in this new world. It’ll take time and a lot of practice. You won’t be able to handle most of these yet but as you grow and get bigger and stronger you will be able to handle any of them.” He finally turned to face me and raised his eyebrows in question.

  I walked up to the counter and let my eyes roam over each weapon before looking up at him and nodding. A sad smile tugged at his lips.

  “Let’s begin. The first thing you will learn is safety and maintenance. Then we’ll talk about a workout routine to help you get stronger.”

  I cocked my head at the weapons and asked,

  “And then I can shoot a gun?”

  His laugh soothed my heart and made me realize that I couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed but his words had me frowning in disappointment.

  “Sure Sky, we’ll talk about you shooting in a few months, if I think you’re ready. In the mean time you will learn and work with the bows. Deal?”

  I moved over to the bows and ran my hand over the smooth arch. There might not be any room for dancing in this new world but survival might depend on these weapons so I turned to him and gave a firm nod.

  “Deal!”

  Chapter Ten-Rex

  I don’t know how much longer I can stay in this room. We started making slash marks on the wall to mark the days and we’re up to sixteen. Sixteen days without opening that door. I swear we all spend time just staring at it. Being locked in here together has made us into a new family and like every family we’ve started to drive each other crazy. Sasha and I have been snappy with each other like only siblings can be and Belle is frustrated with us both. Thankfully, Matty hasn’t been too hard to handle except for a few times he’s cried for Mom.

  I’m pretty sure the room must stink but I guess I’ve gotten used to it. There’s a pile of double bagged garbage bags in one corner that’s filled with dirty diapers and empty food cans and wrappers. There’s another pile in the bathroom under the sink filled with even worse. The toilet won’t flush so we have to use a mop bucket lined with plastic bags to do our business. I hate the smell of baby powder now. Belle uses it on all of our hair to soak up the grease and then brushes it out. The baby wipes we stocked up on and use to wash our bodies has the same smell. It totally makes me want to gag. The smell of that is almost as bad as the garbage pile.

  I used to love playing board games like Monopoly and Risk bust we’ve played so many games to pass the time that it’s more like work now. I know I should be grateful that we’re in here and safe but it’s hard to feel that way when I don’t know what’s happening outside. Except for that first night when we heard the looting we haven’t heard anyone else in the store. Maybe they picked the store clean so no one’s come back or everything is fine out there. It’s still hard to believe what Daniel said is true without seeing what’s out there but I keep thinking the reason no one’s come back into the storeroom is because they’re all dead.

  Matty’s napping, Sasha’s reading a book that she already read twice and Belle’s doing inventory…again. I’m lying on one of the air mattresses watching her scribble in a journal. She’s been doing this twice a day since the second day. To me it looked like there was tons of food and water but the stacks have really gone down even though we don’t ever fill up. Breakfast is always the same small bowl of oatmeal with dried fruit and a few crackers smeared with peanut butter. Lunch is a handful of nuts and a granola bar and every other day some canned vegetables. I’m always hungry during the day but Belle says we have to ration. Dinner is everyone’s favorite cuz it’s the biggest meal. Belle says it’s so we go to bed with a full stomach. It’s almost always pasta or rice with canned meat and vegetables mixed in.

  Belle closes her journal with a sigh and I ask her the same question I do every time.

  “How long?”

  She doesn’t answer me at first but looks at the door. Then she turns to me and puts on a smile that I know is fake.

  “We can stretch the food for ten maybe twelve more days but the water will be out in four.”

  I look over at sleeping Matty then up at Sasha on the couch before l stare at the door then back to her.

  “So we leave in four days?”

  Four more days then we get to see what really happened out there. I’m half scared and half excited but it bumps up the scared part at Belle’s next words.

  “No, we can’t wait until the water’s gone. We have to start looking for more while we still have some or we’ll get too weak.” She bites her lip and looks away from me. “I’ll go today.”

  For a half second I’m filled with relief that she’ll go find more but then Matty mumbles in his sleep and I get that she can’t be the one to go.

  “You can’t go. It has to be me. If things are really bad out there like Daniel said and something happens to you, then me and Sasha would be on our own to take care of the baby
. He needs you. It has to be me.”

  Belle looks over at her daughter then Matty before meeting my look with sad eyes and she just nods. I look at the door again and my stomach does a flip with nerves. I take a deep breath and try and psyche myself up but it’s not happening so I just scramble to my feet and take a step towards the door.

  “Whoa, whoa! Wait Rex, we need to talk about a plan first and you need to take some iodine before you leave the room!”

  A plan, yeah ok, that’s good idea but I already took a spoonful of that nastiness this morning but Belle says I need some more so I fake a gag to try and make her laugh.

  I plug my nose to try and not taste the stuff but it doesn’t really help. Belle gives me a juice box which is awesomeness because she hardly ever lets us have one.

  “Rule number one, you DO NOT leave the store. This is just a scouting mission. I don’t even know if you can get into the main store after those guys blocked off the doors. I want you to carefully and QUIETLY take a look around the storage room and check the doors to see if you can get out. Rule number two, DO NOT open any exterior doors. We’re more protected inside from radiation so keep those doors closed. I have no idea if it lasts this long but better safe than sorry. Rule number three, if you see anyone else out there, HIDE. If Daniel was right, we have to keep the supplies we have left hidden. No one can know about or find this room. Are we clear on the rules?”

  I swallow hard to clear my throat. I never thought about seeing someone else or what that could mean. I look over at the door again but quickly look away. The excitement I felt is now pretty much gone and I’m totally scared. It’s been so quiet out there that I had stopped worrying about anyone coming back and finding us. Doesn’t matter though, I’m going. We need water and it’s up to me to find it.

  Belle makes me put on like three layers of clothes and a man’s winter jacket. It helps the fear a bit cuz I’m getting annoyed at the whole process and by the time I’m dressed I can barely bend my elbows or knees. She’s fussing over me like a mom and debating if I should wear a ski mask or goggles when I just turn and stomp over to the door. She follows me over and helps me move the table we had pushed up against it before pulling me into a tight hug. When she pulls back we just look at each other for a second and then nod. She flips all the locks and uses the keys on the padlocks Daniel screwed on to it. Without looking back at me she turns the knob and pulls the door open.

  Pitch black greets us from the other side and we just stare into it for a few seconds before Belle gasps. Cold, frigid air washes over us and Belle sort of moans and quickly shuts the door, flips one of the locks and puts her back against the door. She’s shivering and her mouth is trembling while her eyes well up with tears.

  “He was right. Oh God, I had hoped it wasn’t really happening but he was right.”

  I stand there feeling dumb and confused. When we had come into this room sixteen days ago it was hot and sticky outside in the last days of August. The air that comes in is more like the coldest January day.

  Sasha speaks behind me making me jump a bit. I hadn’t even known she was behind us when we opened the door.

  “What was that? How come it’s so cold out there? Why didn’t we feel it in here?”

  Belle wipes away her tears before straightening away from the door.

  “The four of us plus the candles and lanterns keep it warm in here. It does get chilly at night when we shut them off but not that cold. Daniel was right. The only reason it would be that cold out there in the middle of September is if we’re in a nuclear winter.”

  Sasha stares at her Mom not understanding.

  “For how long?”

  Belle goes to her and wraps her arms around her and whispers, “I don’t know but I think it will be for a long time.”

  She kisses Sasha on the head and then turns to me.

  “Ski mask!”

  After I cover my face with a ski mask and put a toque on my head, I grab one of the lanterns and go out the door, quickly closing it behind me. There’s hardly any room outside the door, I forgot that Daniel had moved a pallet of toasters in front of it. I move sideways out from behind it into the store room and take a look around. Nothing really looks different from the last time I was out here, just pallets of shrink wrapped boxes, so I head towards the doors we had used to get into the store. They’re totally blocked on this side with more pallets of boxes right up against the doors so I can’t even wiggle behind them.

  Holding the lantern high to see I start walking in the opposite direction. We hadn’t come down this way that first day so I scan the pallets as I go thinking maybe I’d get lucky and find water right away. So far all I see is house stuff, toys and electronics stacked up but as I walk further a disgusting smell starts getting stronger. It’s not too bad yet but it’s definitely getting stronger. I hold the lantern up higher and move to the right to see the pallets better when my foot connects with something and there’s a metal clanging noise. I freeze and hold my breath waiting for someone to react. When nothing happens I lower the lantern closer to the floor to see what I hit. My eyes scan over the floor and a pile of empty food cans until they see a pair of boots. My heart’s pounding and my mouth is desert dry as I move the light in the boots direction and find myself staring into frosted over brown eyes.

  I take a quick step back and my foot comes down on an empty can making me slip backwards right down on my butt. There’s a scream clawing for a way out of my throat but I can’t seem to get a breath to release it and by the time I do I’ve seen that the guy isn’t coming after me cuz he’s dead…frozen solid dead. Amazingly, I didn’t drop the lantern so I raise it up a bit and take a good look. I’ve only seen one dead person before and it was Dad’s granny. She was seriously old but at the funeral parlour she looked like she was going out on the town with lots of make up on. This guy looks like he was sick, like really sick. There are bald patches on his head and red marks and scabs all over his face. I feel kinda bad for him because he still has a half filled can of peas in his hand. That would seriously suck to be a last dinner.

  The shock is wearing off and my heart’s settling down so I take a better look around the guy and a smile cracks across my face. He’s leaning against a torn open pallet filled with stacked flats of canned vegetables and beside it is another opened pallet with boxes of hamburger helper. I push myself up onto my feet and walk further down the row. I can’t help but think about that voice from the first night saying they’d come back for all the food back here. Looks like it’s ours now.

  The further I walk the more food I find and I remember that the grocery part of the store was down at this end. I finally find the source of the smell, rotting produce that is now frozen. I shake my head at all that food gone to waste and poke around a bit until I see bags of apples that still look good. They’re frozen but not rotten so I pull a few bags from a box and leave them out to take back to the staff room.

  There’s boxes piled up in front of the two swinging doors that go out into the main store but they only go half way up and there’s dim light coming from the broken out windows in the doors. I search around and find some empty milk crates that I can stack and climb so I can look out over the boxes. They wobble a bit and I just know I’m going to crash down on the concrete floor and crack my head open but they steady once I lean against the boxes. Dim lighting from the stores skylights show me a mass of twisted shelving piled up on the other side of the door but there’s one path that gives me an opening just big enough to crawl through.

  I gotta think about this for a sec. I know I can make it through the hole and I figure that’s how the frozen guy got in but then what? If anyone’s out in the store I won’t have a very quick escape route. So I just stand there and listen for what feels like twenty minutes but is probably only three. I think maybe I should go back and tell Belle what I’ve found so far but now that I’m out of the room and nothing’s happened I don’t want to go back. Curiosity tugs at me so I shrug my shoulders and climb. The
re’s no glass in the door’s window, just a thin piece of floppy plastic hangs from it so I don’t need to worry about slicing my belly and having my guts fall out as I wiggle through and out onto a metal shelf. I look over the shelf’s edge and there’s more junk piled up against it so I scoot out as far as I can and try to climb over it and down to the floor. My climb turns into a roll as some of the stuff shifts and I end up at the bottom quicker than I planned but only bruised a bit thanks to all the layers Belle made me wear.

  My fall also made a huge racket so I scramble on hands and knees over to an empty table that has price stickers for bakery goods and slide under it. I crouch in the darkness as my nose twitches from the amazing smell of cinnamon and chocolate that had once been baked into the treats I’ll probably never get to have again in my life. I wait for footsteps to come pounding towards me but as my mouth waters for cookies there is only silence. I can’t take the smell for much longer so when my stomach rumbles louder than my pounding heart I scoot out and crawl from one empty table to another until I reach the produce stands and the smell of rot wipes away memories of cakes and pies.

  Silence, no one’s here. I pull myself to my feet and make a face at the nasty smashed and rotted goo that’s stuck to my hands and knees. I scrape it off and head out of produce deeper into the store. Wreckage fills every aisle I look down. Shelves have been swept bare and some have been toppled over. Anything that can’t be eaten or used to survive has been trashed on the floor and stomped on. It so different from the last time I walked these aisles that I just gape in amazement. A cold breeze hits me as I round a corner and the light gets a little brighter. I come to a stop and just stare. Thirty feet away are a set of main doors to the parking lot. I can see even from here that all the glass has been smashed out and one of the automated doors that slide open has been knocked out completely and lies on the floor.