After the Shift: The Complete Series Read online

  In the expanse of the valley, echoes deadened by the snow would transmit the sound of Ski-Doo engines across many miles. Even if they’d just been in the vicinity, they’d have been heard, especially with how light someone like Freeson slept.

  Yet darkness was pressing at the windows of the family room. Nathan could feel the hugeness of the night beyond them, making him and his home feel vulnerable and exposed.

  Even as Tony played with Saber, Cyndi lay her head on Nathan’s shoulder, and he realized that he only had two hands to hold onto everything that he held dear.

  He squeezed Cyndi close and kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled fresh, and the skin beneath was warm. “Okay,” he agreed. “We’ll go tomorrow. Response from Stryker or not.”

  From the kitchen, Saber barked. Nathan knew it was because she was enjoying playing with Tony, but that didn’t stop it from sounding like the dog was happy to be getting on the road again.

  7

  The hailstorm hit when they were twenty miles outside Glens Falls. But those twenty miles had taken over two days already in a journey that was less arduous trek and more a war of attrition.

  Any happiness about having a definite plan of action, goal to achieve, or mission to accomplish, had been short-lived at best. Firstly, even though the custom-sized crew cab on the Dodge was roomy enough for three people, with Tony, Syd, Free, and Saber, it became somewhat of a squeeze. The dog did her best to keep down in the space between the two back rows of seats, but with them all inside, plus bags of provisions, it had taken a bit of logistical application from Cyndi to sort things out.

  They moved the rucksacks of day rations onto the back of the wrecker under a tarp for protection and, occasionally, Tony would sit up front with Cyndi, perching his bottom on the seat between her legs. Asked by Nathan if he was comfortable, the boy typically made the best of it, saying, “It’s great being up front,” leaning on the dash with his eyes glittering with possibilities. “I can see everything much better!” Nathan had tousled Tony’s hair with great affection when he’d added that, and pushed the Dodge on.

  Secondly, although they had the fuel, and the wrecker had the grunt to traverse the snowy roads—with the plow on its nose scything arcs of snow into the air—many of the roads they moved along were glutted with obstacles. There were broken-down cars, old trees that had collapsed under the weight of the snow, and boulders from hillsides that had slid downwards to snag and snarl up any progress. All of it had raised their uncertainty to a constant state of apprehension.

  Sometimes, it would be obvious where humped snowdrifts hid lurking vehicles that could be bypassed by driving around them, but more often than not, the snow had drifted so high that Nathan couldn’t be sure what was hiding beneath the piles of snow without jumping down from the cab and thrusting a ski pole into a bank of whiteness just to see what its point came up against.

  In some places, Nathan and the others had no idea where the road was at all, and on three occasions on the slow flight from Glens Falls on the first day, there had been a grinding protest from the edge of the plow and a sickening bump from the front tires, the cab shaking its occupants around like dice in a craps cup.

  The Dodge had run off the road on those occasions, and Nathan and Free had had to disengage the plow, pull it off the front assembly, and dig behind the tires on the Dodge and the Airstream. While reversing, they just had to hope they hadn’t been railroaded too far off the highway by the pavement edge—so that they’d be able to get back on the highway without having to decouple the trailer, drive around behind it, and haul it onto the road backward.

  “I guess we’ll speed up when we learn better how to handle the conditions,” Nathan said hopefully to the others as they took up coffee and snacks in the crew cab of the Dodge.

  Driving in deep snow was one thing, but pulling a trailer like the Airstream added a whole extra layer of ‘nope’. Several times, on gradients or bends, it felt like the trailer tail was wagging the Dodge dog and furious corrections had to be made to the wheel to stop them running off the road.

  They’d been travelling since mid-morning. In five hours, they’d gone only five miles by Freeson’s reckoning as he consulted his maps.

  On a good day, with the hammer down, Detroit was a nine- or ten-hour drive from Glens Falls. It was the kind of journey you could make in one lump if you wanted to, or you could stop for a leisurely lunch, and a slow late afternoon break, and still roll into the city before nightfall if you’d gotten an early start.

  But Nathan and the others had been given a false impression of their ability to traverse the distance easily. Glens Falls had still had a population for the last few months. There hadn’t been many people before the exodus had begun, so the town hadn’t been so badly hit that people couldn’t get around.

  The roads they were attempting to travel on now didn’t appear to have been plowed or journeyed along for months. That made sense to Nathan, though, now that he was forced to consider it. Why would people exiting the town stay within the new Arctic Circle? They’d instead travel south or southwest as quickly and hard as they could. Traveling straight west suddenly felt like the dumbest idea they could ever have come up with.

  The first night in the Airstream—given that it was nearly impossible, and far too dangerous, to travel during the darkness—had lifted everyone’s spirits.

  They’d made camp at 5 p.m. Freeson, whose frostbitten toes were now almost healed to the point of his gait getting back to his familiar limp, had cooked up a storm, and in the Airstream, cramped though it was, the space was also cozy and warm, so the difficult day had turned into an easier night.

  They’d been able to remain warm, the weather didn’t feel any harsher than it would have at home, and although they’d left their home and the valley behind, and the day had been tough, Nathan had been warming to the task in hand. “Tomorrow will be better,” he’d said, spooning chicken stew into his mouth.

  “I think, tomorrow, one of us should walk ahead of the Dodge as we go, testing the drifts—say, fifty yards ahead? We could take turns and it’d certainly stop any nasty surprises.” Ever the strategic thinker, Cyndi’s suggestion had been a good one.

  They weren’t making more than a decent walking pace anyway, and all the stopping and starting was using their fuel up quicker than Nathan would have guessed. Sure, there were many gallons of it stored in jerry cans at the very back of the Airstream, and strapped around the boom and spectacle lift of the wrecker, but they didn’t know what awaited them ahead. It made sense to conserve as much gas as they could, and Cyndi’s idea helped that aim.

  So, that day, Nathan had taken the first turn walking ahead of the Dodge and Airstream combo along the highway, probing ahead with the ski pole as he went. Cyndi had been right, as they’d definitely made better progress on the second day—it was still slow-going, and only thirteen miles had passed, but they’d left Glens Falls behind and Tony’s infectious sense of adventure was getting to all of them.

  “This feels like a vacation!” the boy said with a smile as wide as the road. Nathan was leaning against the cab now, taking a coffee from the flask Cyndi had prepared before they’d set out that morning. Tony, still in the Dodge but with the window cracked enough to speak to his father, had cheeks that were ruddy with good health, and eyes that drank in everything as if he were seeing it for the first time.

  Surrounding them, the trees were hulking snow ghosts in the still air. The occasional bird would rattle a branch, causing a dusting of snow to fall, but otherwise the world rested silent and unmoving.

  Syd kept trying to turn the cab radio to any station that might still be broadcasting so they could get a weather report, but nothing was showing up on either digital or on analog.

  “Can I walk out with you, Dad?” Tony climbed half out of the crew cab window, his face ruddy in the chill air and his breath making clouds.

  “Tony, the drifts are so deep I don’t know that I’m tall enough to get through them! We
might lose you completely,” Nathan laughed.

  “It’s okay, Dad. Saber will find me!” And as if to agree, the dog barked.

  Cyndi pulled Tony gently back inside. “Come on, sport, you don’t need to be out in the cold air too long. You know what might happen.”

  “Aww, Mom, I feel fine.”

  “Everyone feels fine until they don’t.”

  Freeson, who had been driving, had taken the opportunity of the coffee stop to consult his maps. “About another five miles to the I-87 and Saratoga Springs.”

  Two days just to get to Saratoga Springs. Put like that, the enormity of the task hit Nathan all over again. It was five hundred and fifty miles to Detroit. Even at ten miles a day, it would take a month and a half to get there—and that presupposed they’d have enough fuel, and that storms wouldn’t hold them back, or that any of a hundred other things might not go wrong.

  Nathan looked to the sky, which was beginning to fill with clouds. The change in them had prompted him to ask Syd to see if she could get some sort of report from the radio, as none of their cell phones were working. Although they were all fully charged, there was no signal to pick up, which meant no internet, and no idea of whether Stryker had sent a reply to the email.

  Nathan wondered again if he really was a man born out of his time who yearned for the traditional, uncomplicated life, questioning whether he really could have lived back then without the means to communicate instantly across vast distances. Without the medical technology needed to create medicine for his son, or the ability of satellites to tell him what the damned weather was going to be doing next.

  Above the trees, the sky had become fat with threat, as if to emphasize the worries running through his mind.

  Nathan checked his watch, seeing it was three in the afternoon; they had two hours before dark, and there was another storm coming in. Those five hundred and fifty miles seemed an awful lot longer all of a sudden.

  Hail crashed into the roof of the Airstream like all the buckshot ever made was being shot at the aluminum fuselage. Even though they all were in the Dodge now, they could hear the hissing rattle and ting of ice on metal as the trailer behind them rang out and pinged in response.

  They’d made it another mile and a half before the sky had opened up its turkey shoot free-for-all and flung its volleys at Nathan’s friends and family.

  Nathan had been driving, and Cyndi, who had insisted she should take a turn, had been outside testing the snowdrifts, walking ahead of the plow as the first pea-sized lumps of ice had started to pepper the surface of the snow.

  The wind had been picking up steadily as their torturous progress had continued, and as Cyndi covered her head and Freeson helped haul her back up into the crew cab, the hail hit with a ferocity that shocked Nathan.

  The surface of the snowbanks boiled with it, the tops of the trees along this stretch of highway shivering themselves free of their icy blankets and shaking like panicked creatures with lives of their own. Meanwhile, the quickening twilight rushed overhead towards darkness with the speed of a door being closed on welcoming light.

  “This is crazy!” Nathan hollered above the din as Tony clung to him in the driver’s seat, hiding his face in his father’s chest but occasionally peering out with wide-eyed shock at the onslaught. Saber did not appreciate the din at all as she moved between whimpering and trying to hide under Tony.

  There was no space in the noise for small-talk, so only shouting would do. “Too dark to travel on!” Nathan yelled.

  Cyndi peered into the gloom beyond the cut of the Dodge’s headlamps. “Should we try to get the truck under the trees? That might give us some protection!?”

  Nathan couldn’t help being wary about driving off the road, even in smooth conditions. To get off the highway now would mean one of them going out into the hail, to test the drop to the treeline. He shook his head. “No! We’ll wait it out!”

  And so they did. Flinching as the roof boomed and the cab shook with the sound of gravel being dumped onto the vehicles, with Tony hugging onto his father and Saber barking at the noise.

  They were just two days out of Glens Falls, Nathan thought. Just twenty miles into their five hundred and fifty-mile journey to Detroit.

  Two days.

  Jeez.

  They didn’t go out to check for damage to the Airstream and wrecker until morning. The hailstorm had lasted less than an hour, but it had been night when it had ended. And it had been followed by a fresh fall of snow.

  Not a heavy blizzard, but a steady drop which had soon enough silted up one side of the Dodge and actually had the effect of insulating the crew cab in its own igloo.

  Another reason to stay the night in the crew cab was that everyone was dog-tired anyway. So they scrunched up, huddled together like an extended Inuit family for convenience and warmth. Nate and Cyndi up front, Syd, Tony, and Freeson, with Saber at their feet, behind.

  Around 4 a.m., Nathan twisted in his seat under his blanket and caught sight of Saber snuggled up to Freeson’s legs and across his legs. The mechanic, snoring, had his arms around the dog, in a half-hug. Nathan couldn’t help smiling. Freeson was so rarely calm and relaxed these days, it was good to see.

  The morning dawned as bright as it could with the high-atmosphere ash across its face, and Nathan jumped down into the fresh snow to check the vehicles.

  Although the hailstorm had been the most vicious he had ever experienced, the damage to the vehicles was slight, thanks in part to their construction and the small size of the hail stones. There were pockmarked dents all over the surface of the trailer, and one window had been cracked—which Nathan quickly taped up—but otherwise it was perfectly intact.

  After digging the Dodge and trailer wheels free of the new snow, they headed off with Nathan driving and Freeson going on ahead to make sure they didn’t hit anything unexpectedly. It was slow, laborious, and boring, but by mid-afternoon they came off the cloverleaf at the turn for Ballston Spa, a few miles south of Saratoga Springs.

  The roads here were just as glutted with snow, but at least they had a view across open lands, unobscured by trees. “Sure feels good to be out in the clear air,” Cyndi said, rolling down the window and breathing in the coolness.

  Freeson came up to the side of the Dodge and indicated that Nathan should wind the window down. “There’s a motel here,” he said, pointing to a snow-covered set of buildings half a mile away. “Stayed there with Marie once when we were too wasted to drive home. We could stay there for the night?”

  Nathan looked up at the sky. Another day over, and only five miles covered because of the time taken to dig the truck and trailer out of the snow. “You think it’ll be open for business?” he asked.

  Freeson winked and smirked. “It will be.”

  Half an hour of hopeful travel later, they pulled the Airstream into the front parking lot of the Fillmore Inn. It had long since been abandoned to the elements. Modern in design, it had a central, two-story main continent of a building with five surrounding single-story ranch-style islands of rooms. Having parked, they approached the main building on foot.

  Cyndi had passed Freeson a rifle before jumping down with her own. Nathan just kept his lips tight shut about it. He hated the idea that they had to approach something as innocuous as a motel armed to the teeth. The cold he could deal with, but the sense that his fellow man would do him more harm than the horrific conditions hurt his heart.

  Nathan wasn’t against guns per se, but neither was he someone who worshipped at the altar of the second amendment. Cyndi, on the other hand… well, that was another story.

  The doors and windows in the building were boarded up with plywood that had been screwed into the frames. Ordinarily, this would have put off most people, but along with his rifle, Freeson had brought a pry bar and an ax.

  As Freeson attacked the door’s covering and Cyndi scanned the surrounding area, Nathan felt his discomfort rising. It wasn’t like alarms were about to go off and cops would come s
kidding into the parking lot with lights flashing, but he liked to feel that his moral compass was still intact. Breaking and entering wasn’t exactly his usual hobby.

  Everyone else seemed unconcerned, though. Tony was throwing snowballs for Saber to chase, and Syd was using his pry bar to lift up other corners of the plywood coverings as if doing so was the most natural thing in the world.

  “Maybe I didn’t want to leave because I knew we’d have to start living a different kind of life,” Nathan commented to Cyndi when she glanced his way for reaction.

  Cyndi smiled and blew him a kiss. “Our lives are going to change in ways not even I can imagine, honey, but they surely have to if we’re gonna make it all the way to Detroit.”

  Nathan knew she was right.

  Perhaps he should carry a weapon after all.

  Inside, the reception area was dark and stank of dampness, but hadn’t yet succumbed in any meaningful way to the changes in the weather conditions.

  A desk calendar was set to a date before Christmas, and that indicated when the place seemed to have been abandoned. Anything that hadn’t been tied down had been taken. Nathan could see ghost rings of dirt on the tiled floors where the legs of tables and chairs had been lifted and removed.

  Corridors extended in three directions into the gloom and the reception desk looked like someone with a bad case of resentment had kicked a bunch of holes in it.

  “I guess someone didn’t like losing their job,” Nathan said as they passed it.

  “Nice place, nice people. From what my hangover can remember,” Freeson said.

  “Let’s go check on some rooms. I want the bridal suite,” Cyndi commented, putting her rifle over her shoulder. Turning on her flashlight, she marched into the first corridor and called back with a laugh, “I don’t know where you’re sleeping, Nate!”