Nathan Jones - Shortage

They had the reception, swamped by the congratulations of what seemed the entire town, and after hours of celebration and well-wishing changed into warmer clothes and left the auditorium, shivering in the clear cold midafternoon sunlight.

As Matt looked around his hometown, Sam’s hand holding his tight, it struck him that nothing seemed to have changed in Aspen Hill since entering the building that morning. The town was in the same bleak situation it had been before and everything looked the same, aside from one difference:

Whatever the future held, he and Sam would face it together.

Their honeymoon left something to be desired, since Matt had to continue his duties protecting the town and Sam had her own day to day work to do. There was also the fact that they had to share the underground shelter with 6 other people, which made intimacy a bit awkward even with the privacy screens. It often led to the rest of the family finding vague but important things to do outside that had the adults ushering the boys out with them to give the newlyweds some time to be alone.

In spite of the awkwardness Sam didn’t complain, insisting that she actually didn’t mind being a part of the close-knit family unit with loved ones all around. And, perhaps because they were so hard to come by, Matt treasured their opportunities to spend time alone together all the more.

Still, when he brought up building a house in the spring Sam definitely didn’t seem opposed to the idea, although she insisted that it was a secondary concern when they already had a place to live and so many more important things to worry about.

One nice thing about living with the rest of the family in the shelter, same as they had before the wedding, was that their new life together felt like it flowed seamlessly from their old life with no awkward interruptions, and their honeymoon never seemed to end as they settled into being married.

It also helped that Christmas came just over a week later. Matt’s family had never been much for celebrating holidays, and according to Sam her family’s Christmas tradition was a half hour or so of opening presents in the morning and then the rest of the day was pretty much normal.

This year, however, Matt had a bit more insight into the much anticipated and eagerly celebrated event he’d seen in old classic movies or read in stories from the Old West or Victorian Era. It made sense in a way, since without television or internet to distract them, and with so much worry and suffering around them, any holiday would be both entertainment and distraction, an excuse to forget everything and celebrate with loved ones for a while.

They brought the best young evergreen tree they could find from the foothills and spent long evening hours that week carving ornaments out of bits of wood from the woodpile, since they’d left their own ornaments at home. Matt’s mom had gone to visit Jane, much improved and who’d left the storehouse clinic and had been living with her refugee group for weeks now, and insisted the refugees have the Larson family ornaments to decorate their own tree. She wouldn’t hear of the redheaded woman’s protests, insisting that carving new ornaments gave them all something to do.

Even Aaron was given a bit of styrofoam packing that might once have been considered garbage to whittle into a snowman. Meanwhile Paul was given the important job of breaking the remaining styrofoam into snowflakes, to be pinned onto the pointy bulbs of the strings of LED lights Lewis had hung along the walls to light the shelter before Ferris took the solar panels.

Which was too bad, since they were technically Christmas lights repurposed for general lighting and would’ve perfectly fit the holiday spirit.

In an attempt to lift the town’s spirits for at least a short time Catherine organized a celebration in the town square on Christmas Eve, complete with a large decorated tree and carols. And while there was no wassail or hot chocolate she did manage to get her hands on several boxes of herbal tea, which along with dollops of precious honey made an enjoyable drink for townspeople to warm their hands around as they sang.

She further tried to raise spirits with a dance on Christmas day in the auditorium, one that Matt and Sam were only too happy to attend. Neither of them was a particularly good dancer, but then again no one around them seemed to be either and that didn’t seem to be stopping anyone.

Altogether between family and friends Matt didn’t think he’d ever celebrated a more enjoyable Christmas, not even as a kid when the magic of the holidays was so much more exciting. Even New Year’s Eve, which he’d never considered much of a holiday, was given special treatment as everyone in Aspen Hill looked forward to a year where things improved, clinging to that hope in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

Because unfortunately aside from the wedding and holidays there wasn’t much to celebrate that winter. Thanks to Trev’s generosity with his cache and Lewis’s (assumed) generosity letting them stay at the shelter and draw from his massive woodpile, Matt and his family were far better off than the rest of the town.

Which wasn’t to say things were perfect. They had to viciously ration Trev’s gift to make it stretch among 8 people through the cold months, and over time all of them grew thin and weak and listless. They got sick more frequently as well, which was a great concern in their weakened states and required larger meals to nurse them back to health.

That concern was even greater when they were all effectively sharing one room with only curtains to divide beds, since sickness tended to spread. At one point in January everyone but Sam fell sick at once for almost a week, nothing life threatening it seemed but enough to keep them all weak and feverish in bed. Matt’s new wife was driven almost to exhaustion caring for them all, and although he tried to help as much as he could he’d been hit the worst out of everyone and could barely stand.

That was probably because he was the most active out of the group, since he was often out on patrol or organizing the rosters down at town hall or responding to crises in the town. With all that he worked himself even harder than Terry, who was kept busy doing his best to care for the sick and injured as the town’s only doctor.

Their family in the shelter was better fed and kept warmer than almost everyone else, while the former intern surgeon found himself dealing with increasing number of patients among the townspeople who weren’t so fortunate. As far as they could tell they’d managed to prevent the flu down in Price from spreading to Aspen Hill, but even so people were coming to Terry in droves for other illnesses, injuries, or more direly as they approached the perilous brink of starvation.

In growing desperation Mayor Tillman had haggled to purchase any spare animals townspeople had, even horses and dogs, to butcher for meat. She couldn’t offer anything but IOUs or less valuable commodities, which was everything but food these days when everyone was starving. Precious metals, jewelry, even ammo found itself seriously devalued, but Catherine offered what she could to try to feed those on the brink of starvation.

It wasn’t nearly enough. Terry knew the numbers better than anyone since he saw many of the deaths, and Matt learned of the others from the Mayor during their weekly councils.

All in all over a third of the residents of Aspen Hill had perished by the end of February. Among the refugees it was closer to two-thirds. Many of those deaths were among the older and younger members of the population, those most vulnerable to sickness once they were weakened from hunger. Although even the healthiest members of the community weren’t always spared. Matt ended up attending funerals nearly every day, one of the few strong enough to help dig graves in the frozen soil.