T Connor - Bitter Cold Apocalypse

A cabin. Right there next to the road, just like I’d thought. A cabin. Shelter. Safety. And perhaps a way to contact the outside world.

I watched it materialize from the trees like a ghost fading into view, thanking every deity I could think of for delivering us. Behind me, Angie was quiet, and though I wondered if I should wake her and tell her that we’d found shelter, I decided not to. Instead, I started pushing myself harder, making my steps longer and quicker. Angie was fading quickly, and the sooner I could get her under that roof, the better.

For now, if she was sleeping, I wanted her to stay sleeping. Wanted her to save all her energy for healing.

Above us, the sky was still that strange yellow-tinted color, casting the world around us into sepia tones. The woods were utterly and eerily silent, as if there was no one else alive but us. But I put that behind me, for now.

All that mattered was that we’d found the cabin. All that mattered was getting her out of the cold.

“There it is,” I finally said, unable to contain my excitement. “We’re almost there. Just a little bit farther, and we can get warm. Get some help for you.”

The thought that there might not be help was an unwelcome—and unhelpful—guest in my mind. I didn’t know what had happened, didn’t know what had caused that yellow coloration in the sky, but worrying about it right now wasn’t going to help us. I needed to stay calm, to remain in control, no matter what. Angie was depending on me to get her home. To get back to Sarah.

Eyeing our surroundings, it didn’t seem like there was anyone around—not even in the cabin. Perhaps it had been deserted. Perhaps whatever had caused that yellow sky—and the animals to go crazy—had also struck here. Taken out whoever had lived here.

The cabin was set back a bit from the road, but remained visible through a thin covering of trees along the roadside. It was small structure, but looked solid, and was clearly kept in good repair and used on a regular basis, if not inhabited permanently. The wood siding was well maintained, as were the shingles of the roof, and piles of cut wood were stacked neatly on the front porch.

I stopped at the edge of the trees and lowered the stretcher carefully to the ground, prying my stiff fingers away from the handles. I hated to leave Angie alone, lying in the snow, but I had no better option. If all went well, she would only be there for a couple minutes. And I definitely couldn’t take her with me until I knew what we were dealing with.

“Okay, sweetie,” I said. “You just rest here for a minute while I check things out.”

I approached the cabin on my toes. I didn’t want to scare anyone who might be in there, but I also needed to make sure it was safe before I brought Angie to the door. I crept to the side of the small building, where I found a window that was just low enough to the ground for me to look through. Unfortunately, it was dark inside and I couldn’t see much from that vantage point. A small round table, a lot of bare floor, and what looked like it might be a stove in the corner. A fireplace, too, and at the sight of it my heart beat several times harder.

A fire. We could build a fire in there. It would be the best, and quickest, way to get Angie warm. Thank God.

Another quick glance around the room seemed to indicate that it was dark and quiet in there. I stepped back and looked, and there was no smoke drifting from the chimney, which meant that there hadn’t been a fire in there in some time.

Could it be that the cabin was just empty? Maybe a summertime haunt for some rich family who didn’t bother with it in the winter? That wouldn’t be ideal—because I could certainly use some help out here—but if it meant that we were free to use it, I would take it.

I returned to the front of the cabin and climbed the three steps onto the porch, pausing to measure my surroundings. Nothing jumped out as being out of place, so I raised my hand and knocked on the door.

No answer.

I waited a few beats, then knocked again.

“Hello! We need some help out here!”

After a moment, when I still hadn’t gotten a reply, I tried the door handle. It turned in my hand. I wasn’t surprised to find the door unlocked; this far out of the town, people tended to relax a little bit when it came to that sort of thing.

I still felt incredibly lucky, though. With one nudge I had the door open, and I could feel that it was already much warmer inside, out of the wind. Away from the snow.

“Hello?” I called out into the interior of the cabin, covering my bases and making sure I was alone.

When there was still no answer, I stepped inside, still on my toes, and prepared to figure out whether the people who used this cabin were actually gone—or were hiding, waiting to jump out at me once I was fully inside.

The first thing I did was make a quick circuit of the interior of the cabin. There was a single open space containing a seating area and the table and stove I’d seen from the window. Crossing the small living space, I found a single bedroom with a twin-size bed, separated from the main room by a curtain that could be drawn around it. Plenty of blankets on it, though they looked as if they hadn’t been touched in some time. A stall bathroom was attached to the bedroom on one side.

The furnishings throughout were mostly wood, and they looked handcrafted and well-worn. I was disappointed not to see any sign of a telephone or two-way radio of any kind, and I took a moment to breathe and let that settle in. What kind of cabin didn’t have any sort of radio in it? Why didn’t they have any way of communicating with anyone? The cabin was out in the middle of nowhere, surely they would want—

Ah, I realized. It was out in the middle of nowhere. We’d left our phones in the truck because we hadn’t had any coverage, and this cabin was probably more of the same. If there was no signal here, there was no reason to have electronic equipment.

Still, it was a blow. I’d been hoping that we would find something here, something I could use to call for help.

Did they even have electricity? I suddenly wondered. A couple of electric lamps were standing in the corners of the main room, but the place seemed to be lit primarily by the kerosene lanterns I saw scattered throughout the cabin. Whatever electricity they had, it must have come from a generator somewhere on the property. The town surely hadn’t run any power lines all the way out here.

I moved to one of the lamps and tried to switch it on, but nothing happened. Well, that didn’t mean anything. If they were running off a generator, and they weren’t here, that generator was probably turned off at the moment. This place was definitely set up for off-grid living.

And if that was true, maybe it meant that whoever lived here—if they lived here at all, and it wasn’t just a vacation spot—would know what to do in case of an emergency. Hell, maybe they’d have some super snowmobile, just ready and waiting to take Angie into town for help. People who lived off the grid might not want to be found, but they also didn’t want to die. They had to be ready for any eventuality.

Including, I supposed, people randomly showing up out of the woods, having been attacked by a bear and needing medical attention.

But what if there was no such person? What if this was just a vacation place and no one was out here?

“Then we’ll get her warm and figure out what to do after that,” I told myself firmly. “One step at a time.”

It was something one of my COs had told me once—one step at a time—and it was valuable advice. You couldn’t jump ahead of yourself or you’d forget to accomplish the thing you needed to accomplish right now.