The Cabin

Lying on the old double bed covered by a blanket I knitted myself, I struggle to fall asleep as I listen for sounds of danger. I average a few hours of sleep at night, usually when I know Mark is awake and keeping a watch. But I worry that he too will nod off and that worry makes it into my dreams, turning them to nightmares and eventually waking me from my restless slumber. I know we are lucky to have found the small cabin vacant and in relatively good shape. After a lot of work, we were able to make it inhabitable. With the absence of power the food in the small fridge had rotted and created an awful smell that made me think of the many rotting bodies we had passed as we fled the city hoping to find safety in the mountains. The previous residents had left a trunk full of yarn and knitting needles and I was grateful that my Grammy had taught me to knit so many years ago. The blankets were not perfect, but with the fire they provided enough warmth to get us through the first winter alive. 

Mark and I had met on the outskirts of Vacaville, fleeing San Francisco after the event. People had come to call what happened “the event” because it was hard to really explain what had happened. A planet in another solar system had exploded. The result had been pieces of the former planet hurtling through space and colliding with the other planets in the solar system. The scientists were able to give us, the inhabitants of Earth, about forty-eight hours notice but could not predict the amount or depth of damage it would cause. Reactions went from complete panic to hope for the best. When I heard the news I knew that I did not want to be in a small apartment on the twentieth floor in San Francisco and had quickly gathered some important items, a few days worth of food and water and loaded into my car. I headed east, along with about a million other people in the Bay Area.

I was on Interstate 80 when it hit and it was a parking lot that morning; all of the cars stuck and not going anywhere. I was sitting with my windows down, trying to conserve gas in case we ever started moving again. A man on a motorcycle was in the lane next to me. After a few minutes, he removed his helmet, looked at me and said “Jump on, I can get through this with my bike”. Normally I would have declined, but the world was probably ending so why not jump on a motorcycle with a strange man? I grabbed a few items and put them in one of the saddle bags, hopped on and we were off. 

“My name is Mark” he yelled over the sound of the wind as he crept forward in the emergency parking lane. I had never been on a motorcycle before and was terrified.

“Jenna” I replied. “Where are we going?”

“East. Let’s just try to get out of this mess” he replied.

About that time the first wave of impact struck all over Earth. A small piece reached Earth about one hundred miles off the coast of San Luis Obispo causing a gigantic tsunami that reached the shore. Mark and I were running east to escape the one off the coast, but what we did not know was that there was another piece that hit in Northern California near the Oregon border, one in the central valley and a large piece that landed dead center in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, we were surrounded as several pieces of the dead planet landed in the desert of Nevada. Even the “smallest” pieces were two miles wide so the result of the impact was phenomenal and something out of the post-apocalyptic movies I had watched growing up; explosions, fires, huge holes in the Earth that caused everything around the edge to slide inward. Soon the Earth was covered in thick smoke, so dense you could barely see three or four feet in front of you. Pieces of the deceased planet were reaching our entire planet and causing complete destruction. Eventually all communications were lost, leaving those who survived the initial impact in the dark, literally and figuratively, searching for somewhere safe. 

That was two years ago and since that time the world had fallen into anarchist chaos, a survival of the fittest situation. If you had anything of value; food, guns, tools, medications, you fought to protect it. Mark and I had stuck together, on the motorcycle until we ran out of gas and there was no longer any fuel available, and then on foot. We made it to the forests of northern Idaho, eventually coming across this deserted cabin near a lake. After ensuring it was empty and safe, we decided to stay and have been here ever since. The cabin appears to have been someone’s hunting lodge and it was stocked with rifles and boxes of ammunition, as well as several bows and arrows and fishing poles. There was also a pretty robust stock of non-perishable foods, so we realized we had hit the jackpot finding it. In the past year we have taught ourselves to hunt and feel grateful for a lake with water and fish. We have also started a garden and are able to grow vegetables and some fruits, depending on the season. The winter was hard, we arrived in October and had very little time to prepare before the snow. We know we are lucky; we saw so much death and destruction along the way. Regrettably we had to take lives to protect our own, a reality we both grieve daily. 

We have settled into a comfortable routine, albeit one based on fear and desperation and a quest for survival. Our small cabin is fairly isolated, so much so that our finding it is pretty remarkable, we have yet to have anyone come across us. It also means that we do not know the status of the rest of the world. For all we know, we may be the last living human beings on the planet. Though based on what we experienced before arriving here we assume others exist. In the year following the event, the world became a horrible place.  A place of nightmares where people trying to survive did terrible things to each other. Desperation is powerful, desperation to exist is all consuming and turns human beings into animals, or worse, monsters. We witnessed humans treating humans in ways animals never would treat each other. When I close my eyes at night I see scenes from that year and often wake up screaming. Mark has the nightmares too and we comfort each other through them until the sun rises and the monsters retreat into the shadows of night.

If I am being honest with myself I am not sure that in a normal situation Mark and I would be compatible. Our relationship is based on a mutual desire to survive, there has been no romance or love, the attributes that existed before the event. Rather, we know that we need each other to exist and depend on each other daily. I try not to think of Adam, the man I was dating prior to the event. We had been seeing each other for about six months. It had been going well and for the first time in a relationship I had been able to see myself settling down with someone and starting a family. Adam and I discussed it once, about a week before the event, and he felt the same. He had been in France on a business trip when the event happened, we spoke when the scientists first issued the warning and he told me he would try to get a flight home. That was the last time we spoke and not knowing what had become of him was a daily struggle. At first I cried daily, vomiting a few times from the overwhelming grief. Now that grief had become a daily ache that I learned to accept and live with lack of knowledge about his fate. What I feel for Mark was nothing like the love I had for Adam, but being with him was better than being alone. Mark had been in a relationship before the event as well and had a similar story. He had tried to reach Michelle and her daughter, but was unable to reach or find them. He had no knowledge of what had happened to them and he carried that grief daily as well. 

In our previous lives I had been a fashion blogger and Mark an investment banker. Neither of us had any survival skill training. I had camped a few times with my parents growing up; “glamping” would be a more accurate description as we owned a fifth wheel trailer and enjoyed the luxury of air conditioning and heat, as well as an oven and microwave to cook our food. Mark grew up in the city and early on admitted that the trees and openness caused him to feel claustrophobic. I had laughed out loud when he said that, considering our circumstances, but it had taken him at least a year to be able to breathe normally in the forest. Our personalities were almost completely opposite yet somehow balanced each other. Mark was very driven; he hated to fail, he needed to be busy and feel like he was accomplishing something every moment of the day. I was more relaxed and thoughtful, taking my time to consider options before making a decision. 

During the first year, that drive kept us going when we wanted to just lay down and give in to the horror of the world around us. He pushed us forward, despite my complaining and crying. I was able to see how he had been so successful in his profession before the event. However, he was sometimes impulsive, acting on an idea or emotion before entirely thinking it through. There was a time when we were leaving Nevada and almost to Idaho on foot that we found ourselves coming into a small town. We had been walking parallel to the Great Basin Highway that runs north to south when we came upon a sign that read “Welcome to Jackpot”  and I had attempted to make a joke about hitting the jackpot, but it came out sad and depressing. I had never been very good telling jokes, Adam had teased me about it relentlessly, the only thing he did that made me feel small and stupid. There was a home that appeared abandoned about five hundred yards off the deserted road and down a dirt driveway. We were two days without food, and Mark had noticed a fruit tree close to the house that looked like it had ripe fruit attached to its branches.

“Let’s go,” Mark had said. “We need to eat something”. 

I was hesitant, “we should sit for a while and make sure no one is there Mark. I have a bad feeling about this”. 

“Jenna” Mark barked at me, “you and your bad feelings. We are starving, we need to see if that fruit is edible” he began walking up the driveway at a quick pace. Mark at first had discounted my “bad feelings” often telling me I needed to be braver to survive. When he was about one fifth of the way down the driveway we heard the shotgun blast and both hit the ground. I was sure that Mark was dead, the way he did not move for several seconds.

“Get the fuck off my property” a voice yelled from the direction of the house “or I will kill you and drag you off and leave your body for the vultures”.

I was laying in the middle of the road on my belly, not sure of what to do next and I saw Mark move slightly, pulling his body up on his elbows. He scooted around so he was facing the road and began to army-crawl back towards me. The dirt and rocks of the driveway added more scrapes to his already bloody and raw elbows. After a few minutes he reached the road and stood up and ran to me. I was starting to get up when his strong hands clasped my armpit and pulled me to my feet. “Run” he yelled and we did, all the way into town until we found ourselves outside the broken down and decaying building that used to be Cactus Petes Resort and Horseshu Hotel.

“What the fuck Mark!” I screamed “you almost got us killed. You have to stop and take a breath sometimes, we can’t just charge into a home”

“I know Jenna, I am sorry, I am just so hungry I wasn’t thinking” he said and pulled me into his arms holding me tight in his embrace. I was trembling, from a mixture of fear and hunger, and it felt so good to be held. “Jesus, I can’t lose you, I can’t do this alone and I can’t leave you alone. I will be more careful”. 

We had been on the run together in this unfathomable situation for six months and not once had I seen him cry or show any emotion. He was always stoic; even when we had to bury a small infant’s body we had found in the grass near a tall pine tree outside of Truckee. We had dug a small hole with our bare hands and placed the body in the hole gently. The body was badly decayed but we knew that the child had probably only survived a few weeks before it starved to death. The parents must not have been able to bury the child and instead had wrapped it in a blanket and left it next to the tree. I had sobbed the entire time; the depth of the reality of what my life had become and that survival was an hour by hour pursuit, finally reaching a fever pitch. Yet Mark had remained calm and now he was bawling, his body shaking with each sob, his legs quivering and threatening to give way. I used all of my strength to keep him upright, he was easily seven inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier than me. Although neither of us spoke a word, it was in that moment that we both realized we only had each other and that survival depended on us staying together and being smart. That night we had found a place to rest, a patch of flat ground hidden by some short bushes, and we had made love for the first time. It was a frenzied, chaotic scene fueled by fear and desperation, yet when it ended I felt comforted and safe for the first time in months.

Tonight I need to feel that again and I gently raise my head to see if Mark is awake. He is in his usual place, the rocking chair in front of the fireplace in the one room cabin, with the shotgun on his lap listening for any sound that could indicate danger. “Mark” I say gently so as to not startle him “it’s ok, come to bed with me for one night”. He raises his head slowly, his deep brown eyes meeting mine. 

“I don’t know Jenna, we have to stay vigilant”.

“Mark, it’s snowing. No one in their right mind is going to plan an attack while it’s snowing. I think we are ok for a few hours”

“It’s not the ones in their right minds that I am worried about” he says with a smirk. He slowly raises himself out of the chair and makes his way towards the bed. He places the shotgun next to the bed, leaning it up against the bedside table so that it is still within reach. He removes his heavy boots that are a size too big and places them next to the bed, unlaced so he can pull them on quickly if needed. He pulls back the knitted blanket and crawls in beside me, pulling me into his warm and strong embrace. 

No, he may not be the man that I would have chosen, but he is the man that God delivered to me when I needed him and for that I will be eternally grateful.