An Unkind Winter (Alone Book 2) (24 page)

     Dave had fat fingers. And he never had very good finger dexterity. He was the kind of guy who was always fumbling around with nuts and bolts and small parts, and dropping them into places from which they could not be retrieved.

     Add to that the fact that the freezing temperatures would make his hands numb, and he knew he was in for a chore.

    The best solution was to go inside the house frequently to take a break and warm his hands in his fur lined mittens. A fire would be quicker, but a fire was an unnecessary risk during daylight hours. He’d also wear a pair of latex gloves when he worked. The latex would help keep the cold at bay for a little while and allow him to work longer, without making it too much more difficult to hold onto things.

     At least, he hoped…

     He started by removing the old battery and setting it aside. He retrieved one of the brand new batteries from his Faraday cage and placed it in the vehicle. This was a wet battery, just like the one he took out. But it was protected and therefore still good.

     He could have used a dry battery instead, but he chose not to. His logic was that since the dry battery had never contained water or acid, it had an indefinite shelf life.

     The battery he chose, however, only had two years remaining on a four year warranty. It would eventually be worthless, whether it was used or not.

     Might as well use it.

     After the new battery was in, he almost stopped to take a break and warm up. But then, on a lark, he crawled inside the vehicle and turned the key.

     Nothing.

     He wasn’t really disappointed. It was precisely what he expected to happen. Still, it would have been nice if he’d gotten lucky for a change and the only thing that had been fried was the battery.

     He went into the house to warm up.

     An hour later, Dave hooked up his cordless drill and drilled a hole into the dashboard, then installed a brand new Ford 100 tractor ignition. He ran wire from the ignition underneath the dash and into the engine bay, and to the driver’s side fender well.

     Then he took another break.

     He was finding that the cold air was making it much more difficult to hold onto things than he thought it would. And it was slowing him down, forcing him to spend three times as much time doing finger work than it would on a warm summer day.

    He began to realize that this would be a two day job.

     He looked at his alarm clock and estimated that he only had an hour before the sun started to set. He couldn’t use any form of light in the garage after it got dark outside, so he’d better hurry.

     Back in the garage, he drilled two small holes into the fender well and opened a small blue and white box.

     The box proclaimed, “Motor Craft Starter Relay.”

     He grounded the relay and wired the new ignition to the third terminal on the back side of the relay. Then he attached a separate wire to terminal two, which he’d eventually attach to the battery when he could feel his fingers again. A third wire, attached to terminal one, was left dangling on the floor of the garage beneath the vehicle as he ran out of daylight and had to call it a day.

     The next day he planned to replace the starter and solenoid and hook up the dangling wire. Lastly, he’d install a new electronic fuel injection kit.

     In theory, by bypassing the electronic ignition and on board computer, and by simplifying the starting process, he’d get the engine going again.

     In theory.

-46-

     Once it was dark, Dave had no choice than to retreat to his safe room. It was the only place in the house where he could safely use light at night without it being visible from the street.

     He still wasn’t sleepy, though. He was way too excited at the prospect of getting his vehicle running again. And he couldn’t wait until the next day.

     He built a three log fire. He knew it wouldn’t last through the night, but he didn’t want it to. As cold as he was, he still wasn’t comfortable with falling asleep in front of an unsupervised fire. The place could burn down around him. A three log fire would burn itself out in three to four hours. Probably about the time he was ready to call it a night. And it would be plenty to take the chill off the room so he could get to sleep.

     He went through the three folders of DVDs the family had collected over the years and found one he’d never seen before.

    
Cast Away
. A story of a man cut off from civilization, and from his loved ones.

     How appropriate.

     He’d never been a big fan of Tom Hanks before he’d watched
Forrest Gump
the previous summer and enjoyed it, so he thought he’d give this one a try.

     While he watched it, he munched on trail mix and worked on Sarah’s boxes of research material.

     After awhile, though, he was caught up in the movie and decided the papers could wait.

     Dave was especially interested in Chuck’s relationship with a volleyball he named Wilson. The two became friends of sorts, and Wilson the volleyball became Chuck’s only companion. He talked to the ball as though it were human, and could hear his words.

     At one point in the movie, Chuck cast Wilson into the waves, and was distraught at the loss of his friend as the ball floated out to sea.

     Dave couldn’t help but notice the irony. He’d selected a movie very similar to his own predicament. And the main character had made a volleyball into his closest friend and confidant.

     Dave had made a frozen body his own best friend and confidant.

     Wilson had helped Chuck get through some very tough times and helped keep him from going insane.

     Mikey, Dave presumed, was performing the same service for him.

     In the end, Chuck was rescued from the movie and reunited with his loved ones.

     And Dave was confident that, come hell or high water, he would be reunited with his own loved ones again someday. There was no doubt in his mind.

     He let the fire burn down to embers, then doused it by dumping a bucket full of dirt on it. He was finally tired enough to sleep, though still excited about finishing up the Explorer the next day.

     He went to sleep seeing Wilson, the volleyball, floating out to sea, and Chuck in anguish. He wondered whether he’d be in anguish as well when the day came to bury Mikey, and he no longer had someone to talk to.

     He awoke two hours before dawn, and rebuilt a small fire just so he could brew some coffee.

     When the sun rose, he was standing in front of his patio door, watching the twelve inches of snow in his back yard, cup of coffee in hand.

     At first he thought he was hallucinating when he thought he saw something moving underneath the snow.

The vision was not unlike a mole burrowing beneath the ground.

     It wasn’t until he noticed that the movement was headed in the direction of the pile of corn and wheat plants in the corner of the yard that he remembered.

     The same article that told him rabbits did not hibernate mentioned something about them burrowing beneath deep snow in the wintertime in search of food.

     It also said that snow was a good thing for rabbits. It helped insulate them from the bitter cold and biting winds. Dave imagined it wasn’t that much different than Eskimos building igloos from ice to survive their own harsh environment.

     He turned away and spoke to Mikey.

     “Don’t worry, Dude. I’m not gonna throw you in the ocean and watch you float away. I’m sorry I shot you and all, but I’m also pretty sure now that you brought it on yourself. So I’ve decided to stop feeling guilty about it.

     “The only thing I’ll feel bad about is not being able to tell your family what happened to you. And I hope they didn’t suffer by my shooting you. I know that maybe you weren’t stealing because you were greedy. Maybe you were stealing so you could barter for food to feed them. Maybe you were the breadwinner for your family.

     “If that was the case, then I’m sorry for them. I hope they were able to survive without you around.

     “I will bury you as soon as the ground thaws so I can dig a grave. I’ve buried others since the world turned to shit. It’s not something I ever want to get good at, but I’m quite capable of putting you to rest.

     “And I promise you I’ll give you a proper burial. I’ll cover you with a blanket so you don’t get a face full of dirt. I’ll say a prayer over you, and I’ll even go back occasionally to pray again as I find myself so inclined.

     “I’ll make you a grave marker with your name on it, like I did for the Nance family. I know you didn’t know them. I didn’t either, actually. They shot themselves, in the house next door, on the side of my yard you
didn’t
break into.

     “The thing about that was, there was this family, just fifty feet away from me, who very slowly starved until they couldn’t take it any more. And all that time I wasn’t eating steak and lobster, but I was eating fairly well. And I had plenty to share.

     “For a time I rationalized and tried to explain away the guilt. I tried to tell myself that I would have saved them… I would have shared my food, if only they’d asked.

     “And then I realized that they couldn’t ask me. Because I pulled what I thought was a clever ruse to make people think no one lived here anymore.

     “The truth is, though, even if they had asked, I might have refused them. I might have told them no, I had to save my food for my own family. I don’t know if I could have been that cold and heartless. But I might have been.

     “Anyway, thanks for listening. As I said, I’ll give you a proper burial. I’ll make you a marker and pray for you. And I’ll save your school ID card to remind me that when the world turns normal enough for me to freely move about, I’ll try to find your family. And if I can find them I’ll tell them we had a rough start. But we kind of grew on each other over time. I’ll tell them that you’re with God now, and at peace.

     “And that I considered you a friend.”

-47-

     Dave certainly wasn’t looking forward to spending several hours in the frigid garage again, but it was something he had to do.

     Two years before he put spare batteries and parts in his Faraday cage for his and Sarah’s vehicles. They’d been gathering dust, along with everything else in the cage, waiting for the moment they might be desperately needed.

     And this was that moment.

     Dave’s mission this morning was to replace the burned out fuel injector parts, starter and solenoid with new ones, and then to get his Explorer running again. He couldn’t wait to hear the engine purr.

     He left Mikey and returned to the safe room to make sure the fire was out, and noticed the room was already starting to cool. It had been a good seventy degrees in the room, quite comfortable in short sleeves and jeans. With the fire out, it would drop below freezing again within a couple of hours.

     Dave thought about fashioning an insulated door for the room that he could close in circumstances like this one. Not while the fire was burning, because that would be deadly. But after it was doused, to help the room stay warm longer.

     Not now, though. He had a project that was far more important.

     Tucked inside his parka he was quite warm, and would be for a long time. Thanks to a trick he’d learned in the Marine Corps.

     His parka had an interior lining that was excellent at retaining body heat. When he donned it, it did a great job of keeping his body core warm for awhile. His limbs might get cool, and his hands and head might get cold, but his body core would stay fairly comfortable for up to an hour or two in the extreme cold.

     He learned, though, that by warming that interior lining in front of a fire to say, a hundred and fifty degrees or so, he could stay comfortable in even lower temperatures for much longer. He had to be sure it wasn’t too hot to the touch, so it wouldn’t blister his back when he put the parka on. But coupled with the flannel shirt and t-shirt he already had on, his body core would stay nice and warm as long as he was in the frigid garage.

     His feet were also no problem. Early in his stint in the Marine Corps Dave volunteered for winter survival school at Fort Richardson, right outside of Anchorage, Alaska.

     In January.

     He was the only Marine in his class of Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. And he endured an endless number of “jarhead” jokes in addition to the cold.

     Dave brought two key things away from the experience. The first was an arsenal of small tricks that made living under harsh winter conditions much easier to handle. Like, for example, sleeping with bottles of water and MREs to prevent them from freezing, or to thaw them if they were already frozen.

     The second thing was that he got to keep his extreme cold weather gear once he graduated from the class.

     The extreme cold weather parka was top quality. The hood was even lined with fox fur.

     The set of mukluks he was issued were canvas overboots with inch thick rubber soles. The mukluks themselves laced up and came up almost to his knees. They wouldn’t be particularly warm by themselves, but when combined with the half inch thick solid wool insoles, they kept his feet at normal body temperature for hours.

     Even in below freezing temperatures.

     So the only problem Dave would have, again, were his hands. It was ironic that the fingers and hands which would do the majority of the work on his current project were also the things he could least protect.

     And the only solution he could think of was providing an additional layer of “skin” by wearing latex gloves, and by going into the house occasionally to don his fur-lined mittens and warm them back up again.

     But it was what it was.

     On his first trip into the garage, he rolled his floor jack over to the vehicle and jacked it up. Then he put jack stands beneath it to prevent it from falling down on top of him.

     He decided that probably wouldn’t be a good thing.

     Dave’s mechanic’s creeper had never been used. Sarah had given it to him as one of his birthday presents a month prior to the blackout, and it had been hanging on the south wall of the garage since.

     But now it would come in handy, enabling Dave to easily roll himself under the vehicle without having to lie on the cold concrete.

     He went under the Explorer to see what he was dealing with and what kind of tools he’d need.

     In the old days he’d never undertake such a project under such conditions. He’d simply share Sarah’s car until the weather warmed enough to fix his own. Or he’d take it to a repair shop.

     Also, in the old days, his first step would have been to spray the old starter with a cleaner to remove most of the grease and road grime. But that stuff was hard frozen onto the starter, and anything he tried to spray on would immediately freeze as well. So he just resigned himself to getting filthy.

     Half an hour later the old starter and solenoid was off and sitting off to the side. He inspected it, and it looked perfectly normal. The terminals on the solenoid were a bit blackened, but they may or may not have been that way before the EMP. Later, he’d break into them to see which parts were fried on the inside, and determine whether they could be repaired.

     But there was no need to worry about that now. He had a new starter and a new solenoid, still in their boxes. They were shiny and clean and just begging to be put on.

     First, though, it was time for a break. His hands were getting dangerously close to being frostbitten.

     He sat on the bed, his hands in the mittens, careful not to let the grimy sleeves of his parka touch anything. His face felt hot and chaffed.

     It was a hell of a way of fixing a car, but if it worked it would reduce his travel time to Kansas City to just a few days, creeping along at a steady pace after dark each night, as opposed to trekking by foot during the daytime. That would take up to three months.

     And that was well worth everything he was going through to get the Explorer running again.

     After twenty minutes or so he removed his mittens once again and set back out.

     If he was smart, he’d have taken the starter and solenoid into the safe room so he could marry the two together in relative comfort. But he didn’t think about that until he returned to the garage, and he wanted to press on. So he did it in the frigid air instead.

     But that part of the job was easy and he made quick work of it.

     He found that working with a clean starter was a bit easier. However, putting heavy parts on when lying in an awkward position was always more difficult than taking the old ones off.

     Because of the position of the starter, he couldn’t see the bolt holes. He didn’t need to see them when he took the old one off. He merely loosened the bolts until the starter fell into his waiting hands.

     Now, though, he had to maneuver the first of the bolts into a hole he couldn’t see, from a place his hand would barely fit into. All while holding the heavy new starter precariously over his face with the other hand.

     If the bolt didn’t go in perfectly straight he might strip it and ruin it. Or, even worse, strip the housing the starter bolted into.

     It didn’t help that he rushed out sooner than he should have and his hands hadn’t completely warmed. His fingers were already numb.

     Finally, just before he had to stop to give his arm a rest from holding the starter, he found paydirt.

     He screwed the first bolt in finger tight and went on to the second one.

     The second one was much easier, of course, both because the first bolt bore most of the weight of the starter now. And because he could pivot the starter back and forth over the second hole until the second bolt lined up.

     After bolting it into place, he attached the ground wire and the wire from the starter relay.

     It was time for a long break, since his hands were almost frozen. Back into his safe room he went. Quickly taking off his parka and mukluks, he crawled into his double sleeping bags and was amazed to find they were still warm on the inside. The double layer of winter bags still retained his body heat from when he’d been in them two and a half hours before.

     It didn’t take long before he was toasty warm again. So warm he didn’t want to get back out.

     But it was something he had to do.