The place looked like a cross between an Old West town from some black-and-white fifties cowboy movie and a POW camp.
"Welcome to Coldfoot," a sign had proclaimed. And you"re welcome to it, Emily thought as she steered the Cat into the center of the encampment.
To the south were rows of single-wide billets that Emily a.s.sumed must be the "hotel" accommodation a sign a few miles outside of town had hinted at. All she really cared about was following the hand-painted hardwood signs to the gas station.
In front of the farthest wooden building, Emily saw the familiar shape of two gas pumps, conspicuous by their brushed metal bodies and bright-blue tops. Adjacent to the pumps was a chain-linked area, and secured behind the fence were several huge metal cylinders that Emily guessed was where the gasoline for the pumps and heating fuel for the buildings was stored.
It seemed logical to Emily that the farther north they traveled, the less effect the red rain might have had on the people crazy enough to want to live in this G.o.dforsaken land, especially after what they had witnessed back on the mountain. That could mean the chances of there being more human survivors rose accordingly, and Emily was well beyond trusting anyone she didn"t know at this point.
Emily pulled the Cat to a standstill beside the first gas pump.
The day still had a few hours" worth of daylight left in it, if you could call the weak gray luminescence struggling to make it through the thick layer of nimbostratus cloud light. The utter solitude of this place would drive me crazy within a week, she thought as she left the Cat idling and leaped down to the snow-packed ground. That solitude, such a contrast to her beloved New York, bothered her more now than the aliens. She had already proven she could deal with the invaders. The loneness and solitude of this barren place? That was a whole other matter.
The Cat had a one-hundred-gallon-capacity gas tank, situated outside the cab, behind the rear seats. There was still just under a quarter of a tank left, and they were already a little over halfway to their destination. So a full tank should be more than enough to get them to Deadhorse, barring any more unforeseen excursions.
The two gas pumps were both unlocked, but without any electricity to power them, it made no difference. Emily pulled the lever on the diesel dispenser anyway; it clicked uselessly. When Emily had needed fuel for the Durango, she had simply siphoned it from abandoned vehicles along the route using the hand pump, negating the need to figure out how to access storage tanks at gas stations. But the Cat required a very specific type of treated diesel that could withstand the subfreezing temperatures. And Emily had no idea whether that was something she could just pull from another truck and no way to tell what was in the tank of the vehicle, anyway.
But now she was going to have to work out some way to get the gas from either the pumps or from the large storage containers behind the fenced-off area...a.s.suming that was what they were. If she was wrong and the gas tanks were buried in the frozen ground like a regular gas station, then they were screwed, because she had no idea how she would be able to locate the access port for the ground tank beneath two feet of snow.
Emily crunched through the snow to the fence; there was a padlocked gate at front. She tugged the padlock, hoping it might have been left unlocked, but was rewarded with only a shower of snow falling from the chain-link fence.
She could just make out some kind of nozzle-like protrusion on the one tank closest to her, but she couldn"t be sure how useful it would be to her unless she could get in there and inspect it. The key for the lock could be anywhere and was probably hidden away somewhere safe. She would have to find something to cut this lock.
Of the three buildings she could see, the large battleship-gray prefabricated Quonset hut looked the most likely to have what she was looking for.
"Coming?" Emily called to Rhiannon as she walked back to the Cat, but the girl shook her head slowly from behind the cabin"s gla.s.s. Sure, her look said, I"ll leave this nice warm vehicle to come trek through the snow with you...not!
"Smart girl," Emily said and continued crunching through the snow to the building.
It was some kind of workshop, she thought, or maybe a mechanics shop? There were a couple of pieces of huge yellow earthmoving machinery, a backhoe, and some kind of excavator stored inside. They loomed out of the darkness like flash-frozen monsters. On one side of the building were three walled-off bays, each lined with workbenches and an a.s.sortment of tools and bits and pieces of mechanical doohickeys. Peg-Boards on the wall of each bay held wrenches and screwdrivers and other hand tools.
Even deserted and frozen, the place still smelled of grease and sweat, almost normal. But after the encounter on the mountain, she was not going to rush in unprepared. That little excursion had proven that the red rain was far more resilient than any of them had given it credit for. She kept the shotgun tucked under her arm, just in case of any more close encounters of the holy-f.u.c.k kind.
Emily shone her flashlight over the benches, searching for anything that looked like it would be a match for the large padlock on the gate.
"Bingo," she said as she stepped into the third bay, her light falling on a large red bolt cutter resting against the far wall near a stack of oil drums. The frozen steel tool was like picking up an icicle; she could feel the cold seeping through the thick padding of her gloves. She had to move it from one hand to the other periodically so her hand didn"t freeze up.
She was heading back to the exit when she spotted a pile of wooden sheets, offcuts from some project, slotted in between two workbenches. Emily looked through them until she found a thin piece she approximated would fit over the hole the alien had left in the Cat"s windshield. She would have preferred something transparent, but beggars could not be choosers these days. A few more minutes of rummaging around the work area turned up a roll of gray industrial-strength tape.
Emily followed her own footprints back to the fuel storage area, raising the bolt cutter in mock salute as she pa.s.sed the idling Cat.
Rhiannon looked unimpressed.
Placing the open jaws of the cutter over the shackle of the lock, Emily squeezed as hard as she could on the long handles of the cutter. The lock slipped from between the jaws before she could apply enough pressure; the chain snapped it back against the gate.
It was going to take a little more finesse than brawn, she thought. She repositioned the cutter"s jaws against the lock, this time leaning in slightly, pushing the lock back against the chain link of the gate, using it for leverage. She applied pressure gradually, feeling her muscles tense across her shoulders until the hardened jaws finally severed the shackle with a sharp metallic snap. She dropped the cutters into the snow beside her and wiggled the lock until it came free of the chain, which she pulled through the gate and dumped next to the cutters.
The base of the gate was covered in snow, and it took her several minutes of pushing and pulling until she was able to force it wide enough that she could slip through into the storage area.
Emily moved quickly to the first tank. Stenciled on the side in large black characters were a bunch of symbols and numbers. Next to them was the word UNLEADED.
Okay, that wasn"t what she wanted. She moved to the next tank; this one was upright instead of horizontal like the first one. A similar set of black characters had been painted on this one, although the numbers were different. Beneath them was the magic word: DIESEL.
A pipe, about twice as thick as her arm, led from the opposite side of the tank, then made an abrupt right-angle turn and dropped down, disappearing into the snow and, presumably, into the ground, where it would run to the pumps beyond the fence line. Beneath that pipe was a second, smaller pipe that looked more like a water spigot but twice as large. A big metal lever was fixed to the side of the outlet. EMERGENCY SIPHON PORT was stenciled in the same black letters where the smaller pipe met the tank.
She grasped the lever with both hands and pulled. A spurt of noxious-smelling diesel fuel cascaded from the mouth of the port, staining the snow brown. Jesus, it smelled bad. Emily forced the lever back into place, cutting off the flow. Well at least she knew it worked.
The s.p.a.ce between the two storage tanks was far too narrow for Emily to have any hope of safely negotiating in the Cat, so she was going to have to transfer the fuel by hand, she supposed.
How, though? She had left the five-gallon gas can back in Fairbanks when they"d abandoned the Durango. She still had the siphon, but that would be useless for this job.
She"d seen a couple of large metal gas cans on the shelf of one of the bays in the Quonset hut where she had found the bolt cutter, and she headed back to the building, quickly located what she was looking for, and carried it back to the Cat. It was smaller than the large plastic can she had used to siphon fuel for the SUV, probably three gallons, she guessed, but that was good, because it meant she could enlist Rhia to help her.
Rhiannon had fallen asleep in the warm cabin of the Cat, and Emily had to nudge her to wake her.
"I need your help," Emily said as she slipped into the driver"s seat, revved the engine, and maneuvered the Cat as close to the chain-link gate as she safely could.
"Put on your gloves-it"s cold out there."
Emily had Rhiannon positioned on the back of the Cat, its engine turned off now, as she pa.s.sed the gas can to the girl to pour into the open mouth of the vehicle"s fuel tank.
The stink from the diesel was terrible, and Emily had taken her scarf and wrapped it around her nose and mouth to make sure she didn"t pa.s.s out from the fumes as she filled the three-gallon container. That didn"t stop the fumes from reaching her eyes, though, and she found herself having to fight rubbing them each time she pulled the handle on the tank"s port.
After twenty or so trips back and forth between the Cat and the tank, Emily could feel her back and shoulder muscles begin to complain. They"d managed to transfer about sixty gallons, by her estimation, and when she counted the quarter tank left in the tank, that meant there was only another five trips left before they should be done.
"My feet are cold," moaned Rhiannon, shuffling from side to side to ill.u.s.trate her displeasure.
"Mine, too," Emily shouted as she trudged back to the fuel tank. "Not much longer now."
The clouds had thinned as they worked, allowing the midday sun to finally put in an appearance. It was a strange experience to be crunching through snow almost up to your knees with the sun so bright overhead and yet be so d.a.m.n cold.
Emily filled the can one final time and heaved it back to the waiting Cat. She placed it on the gantry and then climbed up herself. When she had poured the last few drops into the Cat, she replaced the metal cap on the tank and screwed it down tight, tossing the empty can out into the snow.
She stood for a moment in the sun, catching her breath and stretching out the kinks in her back. Thank G.o.d she didn"t have to do that every day; she would be a wreck.
She had left the sheet of wood and tape she"d found earlier resting on the Cat"s rear track. Now she picked them up and climbed into the cabin. She stripped away the makeshift repair from the windshield, tossing it out into the snow. While Rhiannon held the board, Emily quickly taped it into place, doubling up the amount of tape just to be sure.
Back in the driver"s seat, the board partially obscured the right side of her view, but she could make do.
"Let"s make camp," Emily said to Rhiannon as she steered the Cat toward what looked like the reception area for the hotel. A sign above the door read SLATE CREEK INN in large red letters.
She was reticent to leave the warmth of the cab behind them again so soon, but their cramped legs and stiff backs welcomed the promise of an opportunity to rest. "Stay in the Cat with Thor, okay? Until I know it"s safe."
Rhiannon clearly wanted out of the claustrophobic cab, but she nodded her acknowledgment.
There were no signs of any other survivors in the camp-no telltale smoke from a fire, no fresh tracks in the snow. Of course that didn"t mean that there couldn"t be someone inside any of these buildings. The rumble of the Cat"s engine would have traveled for miles, arriving long before they had and alerting anyone or anything that they were going to have visitors.
Emily climbed the wooden steps up to the entrance and pushed open the door with her shoulder. Leaning inside, she quickly looked over the room. There was a rickety-looking reception desk and a well-worn but comfortable-looking sofa in one corner. A selection of candy bars on a rack in front of the register sat next to a line of mummified sandwiches. Against the farthest wall was a gla.s.s-fronted refrigerator with a selection of still-frozen ice cream on one of the shelves. Several liter-size bottles of soda were lined up like soldiers along a metal rack next to the refrigerator.
Emily made her way down the corridor connecting the reception area to the rooms and checked each room one by one.
She settled on the last room at the farthest end of the building. The beds were still made, each with a thick gray blanket. The room was also the farthest from the entrance, so there was only one direction any possible threat could come from, which meant she would be able to sleep a little more comfortably.
Back at the Cat, Emily collected Rhiannon and Thor, along with their supplies, then led them back through the building to their accommodations.
Rhiannon made a face when she saw the wood-lined walls of the tiny room, but she flopped down on the left bed with a huge sigh as though she had been on her feet all day instead of cruising in the comfort of a heated cab, snoozing her way through the majority of the journey.
The room was far too small for them to use the gas cooker safely, so Emily designated the next room down as their kitchen for the evening and set up the gas stove on the floor between the beds in that room. Despite the relative comfort the Cat had afforded them, they were both looking forward to something hot, Emily thought as she heated the stew. They were both tired of the granola bars and bags of chips they had snacked on for most of the journey since leaving Fairbanks. Emily still had a couple of cans of Dinty Moore beef stew that she had been saving, and her mouth began to water at the thought of it, even though the stuff gave her awful gas. Well, she could always blame Thor.
Back in their room, Emily found Rhiannon sitting on the side of her bed. The girl"s head was in her hands and tears rolled down her cheeks, forming a tiny partially frozen pool of spilled emotion between her feet. Thor was sitting next to the girl on the bed, his head in her lap, his eyes fixed on the child.
"Hey?" said Emily, gently setting the bowls of steaming stew on the floor. "What"s wrong, kiddo?" It took Rhiannon a few moments to gather herself before she answered.
"What day is it?" she said.
Emily had to pause for a moment and think. Jeez? She hadn"t given it much thought, but she was pretty sure it was..."Thursday," she said. "Yeah. It"s a Thursday. Why?"
"But what date...What date is it?"
Emily did some quick math in her head. "It"s the twenty-fourth," she replied. This apparently was the wrong answer because the girl burst into tears again.
"Hey, hey, hey." Emily slid in next to the girl, their parkas crackling against each other as she placed her arm around Rhiannon"s shoulder, pulling her close. "What is it, sweetheart? What"s wrong?"
Through a barrage of sniffles and tears Rhiannon turned and looked at Emily. "It"s my birthday," she said. "Today"s my birthday."
Emily was taken aback, but after a moment, she leaned in and gave Rhiannon a kiss on the crown of her head. "Happy birthday," she said, pulling back and smiling as genuinely as she could. "How old are you?"
"Thirteen."
"Wow! You"re a teenager, kiddo. Congratulations. We have to do something special. Hold on here for a moment." Emily grabbed the flashlight and headed out of the room, toward the reception area. Pushing through the doors, she shone her light around the darkening room until she found what she was looking for. She pulled open the door to the refrigerator and grabbed a selection of the ice-cream cartons and a liter of c.o.ke to go with it. The c.o.ke was almost ice, but she figured she could squeeze out a gla.s.s or so each; it might be a little slushy, but still...
"Here you go, birthday girl," she said as she reentered the room. "Sorry I don"t have any candles." She handed the girl a fork from the backpack. "Or clean spoons," she added with a smile. "You know, the best way to eat ice cream is with a fork anyway. Makes it easier." To ill.u.s.trate the point, Emily popped the top off the tub of Strawberry Surprise and scooped a forkful into her mouth.
"Mmmmm! Mmmmm! Mmmmm! Here, try some." Rhiannon halfheartedly dug into the tub and pulled out a large chunk of strawberry-laden ice cream and took a bite while Thor watched expectantly.
"Can"t leave you out, can we?" said Emily as she tossed Thor a piece of the frozen confectionery. He swallowed it whole and beat his tail against the blanket in appreciation. "Nope. No more for you until you wish Rhiannon a happy birthday," she insisted. This brought a smile to Rhia"s face, and Emily seized the moment, popping open the tub of double chocolate fudge. Rhiannon"s eyes lit up as she chewed the ice cream, savoring the flavor.
"Owww," she said. "Brain freeze."
For some reason the irony of eating ice cream in a freezing shack just a few miles from the edge of the Arctic Circle and getting brain freeze suddenly became the funniest thing both Rhiannon and Emily had ever heard. It started with a fit of giggles from Rhiannon, as she clasped her hand to her forehead, and quickly spread to Emily, then back to Rhiannon until they were both roaring with laughter. Thor skipped between the two, barking his confusion but happy to join in anyway.
In the midst of the laughter, Emily had an idea. She glanced out the window. There was still enough light left for what she was planning.
"Okay, birthday girl. Why don"t you grab those two plastic boxes from inside the backpack for me?"
Rhiannon looked perplexed. "These?" she asked as she pulled the two plastic cases containing the pistols Emily had scavenged from the store back in Fairbanks. Opening the cases, Emily pulled out the Glock and then the smaller Ruger Bearcat revolver.
"Guns?" said Rhiannon, a little awed.
Emily smiled back at her. "One for each of us," she said and winked. She checked both pistols, trying to remember the lessons Nathan had given to her on handling guns so very long ago, then loaded them carefully, adding a handful of extra ammo for each weapon into both her jacket"s front pockets. Rhiannon watched her intently as she worked on the pistols.
"All right," Emily said finally, satisfied the pistols were safe. "Eat your stew and then let"s go shoot something."
They stood just outside the reception building, facing a drift of snow. Emily had placed the empty cans of stew on the top of the drift, then added four bottles of frozen soda.
"The most important thing is to always treat a gun like it"s loaded," said Emily as she unpacked the two pistols from their cases. "And never point it at anyone, or anything...unless you intend to shoot it."
Emily popped out the cylinder of the Ruger and checked it was empty, then handed it to Rhiannon. "How"s it feel?"
Rhiannon balanced the little pistol in her hand, gauging its weight. "It"s lighter than I thought," she said.
"Yeah, well, it"s just a beginner"s pistol, so it"s a good one to start you off with. You want to shoot something?"
Rhia nodded enthusiastically. Emily beckoned for the gun back and proceeded to load it from the box of .22 rounds. "See, you pop open the chamber like this." Emily pressed the release on the side of the pistol and the chamber slipped out. "Then you insert one round into each of the holes," she continued as she loaded the pistol. "And always make sure your finger is off the trigger, okay? Here you go." She handed the loaded weapon back to the girl.
Emily moved behind Rhia and took both her wrists in her hands. "So now you need to stand with your feet a little bit apart." Emily demonstrated the correct shooting stance. "That"s it, maybe just a little wider. Perfect. Now, bring the arm with your pistol in it up and point it in the direction of the target. Bring your other hand up and cup it around the gun hand like this...That"s right. How"s that feel?"
"Okay," said Rhiannon, suppressing a nervous giggle.
"All right, now look through the notch on the rear sight until you see the pokey-up bit at the end of the barrel. Got it? Now make sure they are level with each other. Focus on that front sight again-make sure you keep both sights level-and put it over what you want to shoot."
Emily let go of the girl and allowed her to position the gun herself.
"I"m really nervous."
"That"s okay, sweetie. So was I the first time I fired a gun, but there"s no need to be. Just relax and concentrate. Now use your thumb to pull back the hammer."
Emily watched as Rhia slipped her thumb over the notched hammer and pulled it back until it clicked into place.
"Perfect. You ready? Okay, put your finger on the trigger, but don"t pull it yet. Now breathe just a little bit, and, when you"re ready, pull the trigger real slow."
Rhiannon let out a nervous squeak at the crack of the gun firing, completely missing any of the targets they had set up. The squeak quickly flowed into a fit of excited giggles as she brought the gun back up on the next target, c.o.c.ked it, and squeezed off another round. That one went wide, too. But her third shot clipped a can and sent it spinning into the air.
"Yes!" she yelled, waving both hands in the air.
"Careful, that thing"s still loaded. You don"t want to accidentally shoot yourself...or me."
"Sorry."
"S"okay. Just remember guns are dangerous. Let"s try again."
Emily had been waiting for an appropriate time to teach the kid how to shoot since she had picked up the pistols in Fairbanks. The sooner she learned, the safer she would be. The future was an unknown quant.i.ty for all of them now, and Emily would need to pa.s.s on as many of her survival skills as possible to the girl.
Emily waited until Rhiannon had fired off all six rounds, then showed her how to pop open the cylinder, dump the spent cartridges, and reload with new ammo. As she watched Rhia carefully aim and fire off each round, she checked her Glock, fed rounds into the magazine, and slammed it home.
"Not bad," she said, "Not bad at all." Actually the kid was pretty d.a.m.n good, hitting four of the six targets. For a kid who had never fired a gun before, that was quite impressive.
When Rhia had discharged her final round, Emily asked her to empty the gun and set it aside. "Go set up those targets for me, would you?"