Nuclear Winter

      The nuclear winter had been happening for the last four years. It came right after the nuclear summer that lasted for about two years, from right after the bombs dropped until the winter came. I could feel the winds picking up as the already frigid temperature dropped. Tufts of snow were caught in a breeze to fly around for a moment before falling back amongst the other flakes. I noticed that the sky was getting darker and darker with each moment. I needed to find a shelter quickly.

       I stalked through the forest of dead trees, still ash black and crisped looking from the war almost seven years ago. In the distance, through the murky grey air of snow and wind, I saw a cabin that looked suitable enough to stay in for the night. I tucked the butt of my rifle into my shoulder and approached, scanning the area for anyone looking to rumble. All that was noticed was a high-pitched squeal of wind and the distant cracks of dead branches falling off the burnt trees.

       The cabin was small. Maybe large enough for four people to stay in comfortably. Seven if the occupants were willing to be packed together. I slept in one of these as a Corporal in the US Army during the war. Did anything such as America even exist anymore?

       I had traveled through D. C. about three years ago while traveling with a trade caravan from South Carolina to what was once Pittsburgh. In those days the winter wasn’t too bad. Not like it is now, but D.C. looked like those pictures of what was left of ancient Rome or Greece that I saw in textbooks as a schoolboy- if ancient Rome had been covered in snow and had a nuclear glowing aura around it.

       I tried to peak through the windows but they were too frosted over to see anything. Smoke billowed from the chimney- so someone must have been home. I was hoping that they were friendly.

       I knocked on the front door. Firmly, but nicely. I wanted to let whomever inside that I meant no harm if they didn’t want violence. The door crashed open and the business end of a twelve-gauge greeted me.

       “Who are you and what the fuck do you want?” the voice behind that massive shotgun barrel asked. It sounded female.

       “Corporal Justin Dean, former United States Army,” I shouted in fear- though I had only been nineteen when that title ceased to matter- right at the end of the nuclear summer when the last remaining bits of prewar civilization collapsed, I found that using it had about a 50-50 chance of a good first impression. “I saw this cabin and was looking for a shelter before the blizzard arrived.”

       “Build an igloo and leave me alone,” the voice shouted, emphasizing “alone” by knocking my left cheek with the weapon. I had dropped my own rifle into the snow, but I still had a 9-millimeter tucked into the back of my pants. My brain would coat the snow a bright red before even having the chance of reaching for it.

       “Ma’am please,” I begged. The wind had picked. That storm would be here any second. “I have rations. Food. Canned meat. It tastes like hell, but it’s not too bad warmed up on a fire and doused in hot sauce.”

       The shotgun lowered, now aimed at arguably a worse place than the head. I saw who wielded it. She was pretty. Big brown eyes with dark hair and pale skin, maybe about thirty years of age, six or seven years older than me. “Are you alone?” she asked, she surveyed behind me, looking for other people. A critical mistake- if I had meant harm, I could have subdued her right then.

       “Yes,” is all I said.

       “Why?” she asked.

       “I was traveling with a party until about a month ago,” I answered truthfully. The gun was now relaxed in her hands- pointing to the ground to my relief. “I split with them because they were headed to Washington and I was going to California to get on with a caravan out there. Are you all alone out here?”

       “Does this place look like it could hold much more?” The woman answered with a question, “I’ve been out here since the winter started. All on my own.” How in the hell did she not go crazy?

       She finally allowed me inside and I saw how she had kept her sanity. The small cabin- which was way tinier on the inside than I had thought- was jammed with supplies, a kitchen in one corner, a fire burning in the fireplace on the far side, two full ceiling-to-floor bookshelves, and an easel in front of the window by a twin bed. Finished paintings had been jammed on any open space on the wall, I could see the progression from simple landscapes depicting solitary houses or barns to vastly detailed scenes of prewar cities and lovers canoodling in diners. Something was cooking in a pot over the fire, but my eyes fell on the ham radio on the small dining table.

       “Doesn’t work,” my host told me, “The power has been out for about the last two weeks.” My heart fell, I was hoping to radio in about travel parties making their way to California.  

       “These are quite amazing,” I said more to myself, looking now at the paintings than to the woman whose name I still hadn’t learned.

       “I didn’t ask,” the woman replied.

       “May I ask your name?” I was trying to show my host how thankful I was.

       “Marcy,” she answered swiftly, “Now, you may lie down on the bed if you wish. I trust that your clean- no bugs could survive out there. Leave your guns and pack by the door. Don’t worry I won’t steal them- I have enough stuff as it is.” That last line was an understatement. The boxes of supplies included razors, shotgun shells, hunting rifle bullets, tampons, canned vegetables and fruit, and a whole host of other luxuries. I had no doubt that her freezer was full of hunted meat also.

       Eventually, my fatigue of not sleeping for two days won over my skepticism of her kindness. I dropped my rifle and my pistol, as well as the bayonet I kept in my boot with my jackets and pack on the floor. I then removed my almost destroyed combat boots and removed my stiff socks before crawling into the small, but heavenly bed of fur blankets. I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept on a real bed. My mind was away in sleep before I fully laid my head down.  

       I had a dream. I was younger again and at a comic shop with a friend. Joey Petrino- my best buddy since I was five. We were looking through horror comics, I had reached out a super scary looking one and was about to show Joey before I turned to ash and crumbled in my hands. I turned to Joey who also tuned to a pile of ash at my feet. Before I knew it, everything was a grey and black mash of burnt crisps. I woke with a start.

       “Finally, you’re awake,” Marcy spoke, outside I could hear the clash of wind and snow as the blizzard was in full effect now. “You’ve been out for a while. Shave really quick,” she pointed to a razor and crème next to a basin of steaming water she had set for me, “and dinner should be done by then. It’ll be a lot better than that canned shit you have on you.” I shaved and looked at myself in the mirror. I was taken aback.

       The reflection I remembered was childish and smiling. The one I saw now was serious and adult. My hair- which hadn’t been cut in about six months- was oily and hung around my collar, my eyes were grey and cool, and my once smiling lips were a red frown peaking from my skin.

       “My God,” Marcy spoke when I sat down in front of my bowl of stew, “You’re a baby still- aren’t you?”

       I made a face and countered, “Twenty-three, “I said.

       “You are a baby,” my host spoke back. We began to eat. The food was the best I had had since before the war. Real meat with vegetables and broth added with spices. I was damn near licking my bowl before Marcy gave me a second helping. I wanted more after, but my stomach was too full.

       Still mulling over being called a baby when Marcy cleaned the dishes, I asked, “How old are you?”

       “It’s never polite to ask a lady her age,” Marcy replied motherly, “but if you must know, I am forty-two.”

       Forty-two? I had this woman pegged for thirty at the most. “You carry it well,” I answered.

       Marcy shrugged, “Well, this new way of life has me living healthily I suppose.”

       We talked by the fire a bit, sipping on some kind of liquor she made herself. It tasted like strawberry mixed with lava.

I had learned that Marcy was married before the war with two sons of her own. In those closing days, the military was desperate enough to take any able-bodied male who knew which direction the bullet came out of the rifle, so at thirteen and seventeen, her sons had followed their father in being killed in action. I understood, I enlisted myself at sixteen- like so many others- only I was lucky enough to survive it. She had originally come from Georgia before traveling with a group in search of a haven, when the reality hit that there was no safe haven, she left in the middle of the night and found this cabin in Colorado- so that’s where I was.

       “Well, what used to be Colorado anyway, I don’t know what it’s called anymore,” Marcy said, “If it even does have a name anymore.” Since then, Marcy had taught herself how to hunt and scavenge, sneaking off to a town about ten miles from here to loot the grocery store, bookshop, and art supplies store to keep herself preoccupied when the loneliness comes. Judging from how many paintings there were and how many books lined the shelves, I supposed the loneliness came quite often.

       “What about you, what was your life like before the war?” Marcy asked, “If you can even remember that far.”

       I told her how I had grown up I Florida, enjoying to read and write. My dad had been killed when his ship was sunk two years into the war. My mother had to work two jobs to keep us stable, so I spent a good deal of my childhood alone if I wasn’t hanging out with Joey. When the war had vamped up into total chaos around the war, I enlisted in the Army and stayed with them until they gave up hope and scattered to their own destinations when the nuclear winter entered.

       “No young person should ever have to grow up so fast,” Marcy scooted over on the small sofa put a hand on my shoulder. “You should be chasing girls and getting into trouble at that age. Breaking hearts and shooting darts.” She joked to herself. “Did you have a girlfriend?”

       I blushed at the question, “No,” I answered sheepishly, “I liked one, but life had other plans I suppose.”

       “Poor thing,” she replied.

We went to sleep not long after as the storm gained momentum then finally withered away.

The two of us shared the same small bed, not intimately, but as if we were old friends. I stayed a few days longer to let the snow die down. Marcy gave me a haircut and packed me supplies that would last me until I got to California.

On my way out, I saw some new trees and bushes sprouting through the snow.