December 3rd, 6:45am,
78 days after the Blackout – The Cabin
Meghan jolted
awake in bed, her heart racing. Her body was covered in a film of cold sweat,
and she was panting. She’d had another nightmare. It was always the same one
these days: she’s watching the cabin from behind a Plexiglas window, like she’s
in a zoo. Two men sneak onto the property. She’s banging on the window to warn
her cabin mates, but none of them hear her. Everyone leaves for their routine
errands, and she’s screaming at them to stay. One of the men grabs Susan,
knocks her unconscious, and runs into the cabin. The other holds a knife to
Susan’s throat. Meghan bangs on the window harder, screaming herself hoarse. In
the dream, she breaks the window and shoots at the man holding Susan with her
bow, but she’s too late. Susan’s neck is sliced open and gushing blood down the
front of her and all over the ground. She slumps over, and she is gone.
She looked
around the room, not recognizing it for a moment. A brief relapse in memory wasn’t
uncommon for her after these nightmares; she always expected to wake up in her old
apartment in Pittsburgh, walk over to her home office, and start working on her
computer. As she got her bearings and recognized the bedroom of the cabin,
reality started to sink it. It wasn’t a
nightmare, not really, she lamented. It
was a memory. I killed a man. But at least Susan is actually alive. She was
also thankful she didn’t have these dreams every night like she used to during the
first couple weeks, though she suspected they’d never go away fully.
It had been
almost three months since Superstorm Nicole pummeled the east coast of the
United States. Many cities on the east coast, some places as far in as 50
miles, were reduced to piles of debris and waterlogged buildings. Downed power
lines in these areas started a chain reaction that eventually resulted in the
shutdown of the entire Eastern Grid with the exception of a few pocket cities
with independent power stations. Half the country—from Florida to Maine and all
the way west to Oklahoma—was without power, phones, or cell towers. The absence
of electricity created some immediate issues, such as the inability to use credit
cards, SNAP cards, or debit cards. It wasn’t long before hospitals, pharmacies,
grocery stores, gas stations, and banks in the Blackout and Storm Zones went
under. Banks were worthless now, anyway; the Dollar crashed soon after the New
York Stock Exchange closed a month into the Blackout. The Second Great
Depression had begun and adversely impacted countries all around the globe.
Infrastructure
quickly deteriorated once citizens realized they could not access their money.
Stores were pillaged as people fought over the last of the supplies, and cities
were quickly seized by gangs and militias as law enforcement officials were
vastly outnumbered and could not keep up with the crime all around them. Many
escaped the cities into wooded and rural areas, learning to live off the land.
Others remained in their suburban communities and struggled to defend their
homes. All anyone could do now was try to survive until the power came back
on—though no one knew when that would be—and hope that the government had a
plan to make this nightmare end someday.
Meghan’s
boyfriend, Steve, owned the cabin, having inherited it from his grandfather
years prior. When the Blackout happened, Meghan, Steve, and several of their
friends came to the cabin to get out of the city before things got too
dangerous. They soon learned that they hadn’t escaped danger completely,
though, when two men tried to seize their property.
No one realized
the men had been watching them from the forest for over a week, learning their
routine. On a day when most of the group was away from the cabin while running
routine errands, the thieves used the opportunity to their advantage. Meghan
and their friends’ teenage daughter, Taylor, defended the group’s home from the
marauders, killing them both in the process. Taylor’s mother, Susan, had
sustained a neck laceration from the scuffle, but fortunately she had fully
recovered. Meghan still avoided the spot in the woods where the two had been
buried, a chill always running through her when she got too close. She could
still see both of their faces so clearly, even though she had been several
hundred feet away as she hid behind the tree line. She still saw their bodies
slumped on the ground, still saw her arrow protruding from the one’s forehead
and the gaping chest wound in the other from Taylor’s rifle. Those images would
never, ever fade.
Meghan took a
deep breath, inhaling the cool winter air perfumed with smoke from last night’s
fire. The cabin was staying warm enough, considering there was no electric
heater, but the morning chill was always a bit sharp until they got the chimney
fire stoked. She pulled on her thick wool socks, trying to block the chill of
the hardwood floor as she padded to the common area to build the fire back up.
As she tiptoed
across the room, she checked in on Taylor. Meghan and her boyfriend, Steve,
occupied one half of the bedroom, a thin bedsheet dividing their living space
from Taylor’s. She immediately noticed Taylor’s irregular breathing, her jerky
hand and leg movements, and that she was muttering under her breath. She was also
having a nightmare. Taylor didn’t have the dreams as frequently as she used to,
either, but they were just as surreal as Meghan’s when she got them.
Meghan kneeled
down next to her, lightly shaking her shoulder. “Tay-Bug? Sweetie? You’re
having a bad dream.”
Taylor’s eyes
shot open, and she gasped. She looked around frantically until she got her
bearings, and then she focused on Meghan’s face. She sighed. “Thank you,” she
said.
“Same one?”
Meghan asked.
Taylor nodded,
sitting up. “It’s always the same,” she muttered. She knew that shooting the
home invader was the only possible solution to the problem; he was barricaded
in the house, and only Meghan and Taylor were there. If he would’ve still been
in the cabin when everyone got back home, he could easily have shot them all
before they got anywhere near the building. Luckily, he didn’t know Taylor had
run from creek to help when she heard gun shots, so she had to take the
opportunity to eliminate the threat. But still, to be 16 and to have killed a
man…
Meghan sat next
to her, putting her arm around her. “We’re safe, Tay,” she said reassuringly.
“They’re not coming back.”
Taylor nodded.
“I know. I’m just sick of having this damned dream over and over.”
“So am I, trust
me.”
They sat in
silence for a moment, their customary tradition after suffering these dreams.
Taylor sighed, standing up. “Well, I’m awake. Might as well get the fire
started.”
They both
padded into the common area, trying not the wake the others. The other cabin’s
bedroom was occupied by Taylor’s parents, Harry and Susan, as well as her two
younger brothers, Jared and Ian. The rest of the group—Bryan, Tori, and
Chloe—were sleeping in cots in the living room. Tori and Chloe had their own
camper, but they’d had to move into the house a week ago; it had finally gotten
cold enough that their nylon-walled popup camper couldn’t properly shield them
from the cold temperature any longer, even with their solar-powered heater
always running.
At this point,
lighting a fire was second nature; they all used to struggle to get tinder lit
off one match, but now they sometimes didn’t even need a match or a lighter.
There were generally a few coals still hiding in the ashes which they would
reignite as they cleaned the flue. They kept the ashes to make their own soap,
and it was getting to a high enough quality that they might even be able to
start trading bars of it for other goods. Now that it was colder out and a fire
was often blazing, there would be plenty of ashes to make soap so long as they
could trade for tallow from the dairy farmer.
Once they got
the chimney fire lit, they would get the wood burning stove going. They were
rationing their remaining coffee, and everyone had a small cup in the morning
to get started. The whistle of the kettle was the house’s wake up alarm. Now
that it stayed dark later in the morning, it was harder to wake up at a
reasonable hour. There was no ignoring that whistle, though.
Taylor peeked
outside the kitchenette window. “It looks like it snowed last night,” she
whispered.
“We should have
your brothers collect snow for the rain barrels,” Meghan suggested. “As soon as
everyone’s up we’ll have to check the thermometer. It doesn’t look that cold
out; Chloe and Tori may be able to check the cone traps today.” Fish were still
in the deeper, warmer parts of the creek. The weirs they built in the autumn
were too shallow and cold for fish to swim in them right now; they had to rely
on the cone traps resting on the creek bed to get fresh fish. They had plenty
of supplies stored in the cabinets and in the crawl spaces under the cabin, but
they still liked to eat fresh meat whenever possible.
Tori began to
stir. She peeked her head over her blanket. “Good morning,” she greeted,
stretching. “That fire feels good. It got kind of cold last night.”
Meghan nodded.
“The bedroom wasn’t much better.”
“Where’s
Chloe?” Taylor asked.
Tori nodded towards
the roof. “It’s her watch,” she explained. After the attack on the cabin, Steve
and men from the nearby trading post constructed a watchtower on the roof of
the cabin. They used to just patrol the perimeter, but then the men had
attacked the front of the cabin in the few moments Meghan, the person on watch,
had circled around the back. Now they had a 360 degree vantage point of both
the perimeter and into the woods. They built the over watch next to the chimney
which provided residual heat, and the solar powered heater from the camper was installed
once Tori and Chloe moved into the cabin for the winter. Plastic flaps over the
windows insulated the space enough to stay toasty, even on the coldest nights.
They were thankful they lived so close to the junk-yard-turned-trading post and
that they were friends with its proprietor, Old Bill, because they were able to
get the supplies they needed to build the over watch so that they could continue
defending their home in the dead of winter.
The kettle
started rumbling, a sign that it would be done soon. Bryan sat up, rubbing his
eyes. “What time is it?” he asked.
“A little after
7,” Taylor replied. “Do you want coffee or tea?”
“Coffee,
please,” he responded, groaning as he stood. The cot wasn’t the most
comfortable bed he’d ever slept on, and his old muscles and bones ached every
morning until he stretched out. It was better than stepping on the floor,
though.
The kettle’s
whistle roared to life, signaling the start of the day. Stirring could be heard
from both bedrooms, mattresses and floorboards creaking as everyone arose. The
scent of coffee brewing in the French press filled the air, its invigorating
aroma energizing them.
Harry popped
his head out of his bedroom, greeting everyone. “Hey, Bryan, just a heads up: in
the middle of the night, Whiskers came into our bedroom and started scratching
at the hatch to the crawl space, so I let her in there.”
Bryan nodded.
“She probably heard another mouse.” As the temperature dropped, more mice tried
to make their way into the cabin to stay warm. Bryan’s cat had already caught
four, and they were sure there would be more to come. They were all thankful
they had a cat on hand to assist with keeping their food supply safe. Their provisions
were all sealed in plastic tubs, but the mice would eventually find a way in. “Hopefully
she doesn’t leave the carcass at the foot of my bed again. I love her, but I
could do without her gifts.”
Steve walked
out of the bedroom, fully clothed and ready to start the day. He’d heard Meghan
speaking to Taylor after her nightmare, but he let them have their privacy;
they had bonded over defending the cabin, and they were better at comforting
each other than he ever would be.
“Good morning,”
he greeted, retrieving a mug from the cupboard. “What do you guys want for
breakfast?” Steve had been a chef for over two decades prior to the Blackout,
so he cooked most of the cabin’s meals. “We have a few eggs left, and this
bread’s gonna turn soon if we don’t eat it. Egg sandwiches?”
“Sounds good to
me,” Meghan said. “I’ll get out a jar of fruit. We haven’t had oranges in a
while.”
It wasn’t long
before the group was sitting around the table together eating breakfast and
planning out the day. Because so many tasks needed accomplished on a daily
basis, it was helpful to get together and coordinate their efforts before they
got started. Sitting together for a meal also made them a more cohesive group;
keeping the lines of communication open was key to ensure everything worked
smoothly in such cramped quarters.
“It looks like
it snowed last night,” Chloe announced.
“We checked the
thermometer,” Taylor added. “It’s 35 degrees, so it’s going to melt soon.”
“We should
collect snow for the rain barrels,” Bryan suggested.
“I’ll have the
boys collect it once they’re ready to go out,” Susan said. “I’m sure they’ll be
excited for a chance to play in the snow.”
“Do you think
it’s warm enough out to check the fish traps?” Meghan asked.
Chloe nodded.
“We’ll have to be careful walking in the snow, but we’ll make it to the traps.”
“It’s also
militia day,” Harry reminded them. Because there was no more actual law
enforcement in their area, most residents from the nearby towns, as well as
local farmers and others in the area, had banded together to defend their territory.
Steve and Harry had enlisted once it was formed, and Taylor joined after the
attack on the cabin. Harry was still anxious about his teenage daughter being a
member, but she insisted on joining after the attack on the cabin.
Taylor nodded.
“It’s drills today, so we’ll be gone for a good part of the afternoon.” The
militia had a schedule during which members would gather and discuss local events
as well as practice combat maneuvers. Learning to work together as a unified
unit was essential to the group’s success, and it was a great supplement to
what Steve had already taught her about combat and hunting. She had quickly
become proficient with firearms once they arrived at the cabin thanks to learning
how to hunt, so she soon earned the honor of being named one of the top mentors
in the militia.
Steve began
training his cabin mates in self-defense, a skill which became even more
crucial after the attack. Taylor struggled at first; like most people pre-Blackout,
she’d lived a mostly sedentary lifestyle, her free time spent playing video
games or hanging out with friends. She had already gotten stronger thanks to
helping out with hunting, fishing, and other tasks. The martial arts training
enhanced this, making her young body limber and agile in ways she hadn’t
thought possible.
“Any updates to
the radio newscast?” Susan asked. There was still only one radio station coming
through: a group of ham radio users whose sole purpose was to keep news broadcasting
on at least one station on every band.
Meghan shook
her head. “I checked while Steve was getting breakfast ready. It’s the same broadcast
that’s been playing for the last couple weeks,” she responded.
Tori walked to
the chimney, feeling a thick plastic sack hanging next to it. It was a solar
shower which they hooked up inside the bathroom. Because it wasn’t warm
outside, they heated the water by hanging it near the fire between washings. It
was more economical this way; they could heat water on the wood burning stove,
but that’d be a waste of their supplies. “The water’s pretty warm. Anyone up
for a shower?”
Steve shook his
head. “I’ll wait until after drills,” he replied. “No sense in wasting the
water now.” Harry and Taylor nodded in agreement.
“I’m going to
wait until after we get the fish,” Chloe said. “I’ll need warmed up after
that.”
“I’ll take a
quick one,” Meghan announced. She was still a bit shaken up after from her
nightmare, and the warm water would be a great help to soothe her nerves. “I’ll
replace the water with more from the well once I’m done. It should be warm by
the time everyone else is ready.”
“Sounds good,”
Susan agreed, collecting everyone’s plates and cups. “I’ll get the dishes
washed before I get the kids ready to play outside.”
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