Gray Snow: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Read online

  GRAY

  SNOW

  PAUL

  CURTIN

  Gray Snow

  © Paul Curtin 2019

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Thank You

  Acknowledgements

  About Paul Curtin

  Dedication

  For those who struggle but don’t give up.

  Sean

  Sean raised the maul axe, pretending the log was his boss’s head. He brought the blade down and cleaved it into two clean pieces, stomped over to the wood pile, grabbed another thick log from under the tarp, and placed it on the stump.

  His fat boss’s face appeared again on the log. In his fantasy, his boss was talking down to him in that tone of his. Arrogant. Dismissive. Unappreciative. Sean lifted the maul axe high into the air and dropped it through his boss’s skull, cutting off his words midsentence. Silence. Sean took off one glove and wiped his face, tipping his head back, breathing in the menthol-like air and releasing his anger little by little in vaporized breaths that floated into the darkening sky.

  His family had already spent so much on the house and the supplies and the move. They couldn’t go back. Not even if his boss demanded it. Not after everything.

  “Why aren’t you using the machine?” a small, high-pitched voice asked behind him.

  He put his glove back on and looked at the wood-cutter—a bulky machine he could chuck logs into and receive split wood. He turned to his son. Aidan seemed so small, sitting on a nearby stump with his shoulders hunched to block the wind from creeping into his neckline. Sean said, “Just want to do it by hand today, bud.”

  “Why do you chop so much wood?”

  “Because it’s good to be prepared. Make sure we can keep ourselves warm if something happens.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a lot of things.”

  “Like?”

  “You don’t need to be worrying about that.”

  “Like if the power goes out?”

  He nodded. “Something like that,” he said, grabbing the end of the axe and wiggling the handle back and forth to loosen the blade. “It’s always good to have more.”

  “How long will the power go out?”

  “I didn’t say it would.”

  “No, I mean how much do we need?”

  “Enough to last the winter.”

  “Would the power go out that long?”

  Sean freed the axe. “You won’t have nightmares if I tell you this, right?”

  “I’m not a baby.”

  “No, you’re not,” he said and moved the split logs to his already massive woodpile. “Sometimes bad things happen, and you don’t want to be unprepared.”

  “What kind of bad things?”

  He looked at his son. “You don’t have to worry about it. That’s my job.”

  He set another piece on the stump and readied his swing before bringing it down. Split chunks flew in opposite directions.

  “Can I try?”

  Sean put another log onto the stump and looked at his son. The boy’s arms were the same diameter as the axe’s handle. Probably couldn’t lift the thing. “Maybe your mom needs help in the kitchen. I can take care of this.”

  Aidan stared back at him, a fierce determination burning in his eyes. Sean didn’t want trouble from his wife, making the kid exert himself against doctor’s orders. But she didn’t understand men—about the need to be strong and rugged. A boy could only hear he was weak so many times before it crushed him.

  “Come over here.” Aidan’s face lit up. He jumped from his stump and rushed over to his father. “Stand here,” Sean said, pointing in front of himself. The boy slid against his father’s legs, Sean towering over his frame. “Grab the handle.”

  The boy took hold of it, looking up at Sean with a smile.

  “Just hold on tight, okay? Make sure you’re putting enough force behind it.”

  Aidan nodded and tried to lift the axe, but Sean reached out and stopped him. “Whoa there. You’re going to hit me in the head,” he said, stepping back. “The blade’s really sharp. Always make sure there’s nobody around when you swing an axe. Could hurt someone.”

  When Sean was clear of the vicinity, Aidan looked back at him as if to ask permission. Sean nodded. “Keep an eye on your target. Where your eye goes is where the blade will go.”

  The boy lifted the axe, resting its weight against his hip to keep it from wobbling. He didn’t have nearly enough momentum bringing it down, only lifting it a couple feet, so the blade chipped against the side of the wood and thudded to the ground.

  “Try again.”

  He did. The blade made contact, hard, with the wood. The handle vibrated, and he dropped it like it had burned his hands. He jumped back, startled, and crossed his arms.

  “You’re all right,” Sean said, walking to the stump and picking up the axe. “You want to try again? I can help you.”

  The boy shuffled snow around with his foot. “Maybe later.”

  He roughed up Aidan’s hat, the boy smiling and readjusting it. Badgering him would only make it worse. Aidan had enough on his plate and had won plenty of battles in his few short years. There was no need to discourage him over chopping wood. “Go on and help your mother make dinner. Tell her I’ll be in soon.”

  Aidan nodded and ran toward the house. “Slow down,” Sean yelled after him.

  He smiled, watching his son disappear through the door at the back of the garage. As he returned to the task, snowflakes floated down like feathers settling toward the earth. He would not leave, no matter what his boss said. He couldn’t leave the majestic snowfalls, high and deep and wet. The smell of a fire nearby. The soft breeze carrying no sound at all except, maybe, someone shooting a rifle in their backyard miles away. No traffic, no people. Serenity.

  Security.

  He’d be damned before he let his boss take that from him.

  He squeezed the handle and brought the axe into a perfect arc and tore the log open. A few more pieces and his anger would subside like a fire reducing to ash.

  Sean opened the door from the garage and heard the television across the house. He kicked the snow off his boots, removed them, and threw his coat
onto the couch in front of him. He walked around through a long rectangular den that led to the living room. The volume of the TV grew with each step. Cartoons. His son was settled into the living room couch. He grabbed the remote and muted the TV. “What’re you doing?”

  His son looked oblivious.

  “I told you to help your mom, not watch TV.”

  “She told me she didn’t need help.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So she’ll say exactly what you just told me?”

  He nodded.

  Sean set the remote down and moved toward the kitchen, sighing. He could already hear her reasoning. He doesn’t need to be exerting himself. The doctors said he should be resting. She coddled the boy. Always did. But she couldn’t do it forever.

  He adjusted a napkin on the dining room table before rounding the corner into the kitchen. Crossing the threshold was like hitting a wall of heat, like entering a furnace. Elise had the oven cranked to full blast, every stovetop burner simmering a pot or pan. She stood behind a counter, working a beige paste in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Sweat darkened the auburn hair around her temples and beaded on her forehead. She wiped it off with her sleeve and kept going. He waved to make his presence known.

  “Hey,” she said, not looking away from her work.

  Sean came around her side and planted a soft kiss on her cheek. “Smells good in here.”

  She didn’t acknowledge him. He flashed a smile, but it faded quickly. When she got this way, everything was about the task. No time for anything else. He started toward a plate of cookies on the counter. “Aidan said you told him you didn’t need any help.”

  “That’s because I don’t.”

  “You look stressed.”

  “I’ve got a handle on it.”

  He picked up a cookie. “You sure? You’ve said this before and then you tell me later how stressed you were.”

  “I told you I’m—put that down.” She eyed him and stopped working. “I also seem to remember you saying you wanted to eat less junk food.”

  “But they’re here.”

  “They’re for later.”

  He sucked in his bottom lip and set the cookie down. “The doctor said he could do moderate activity without any risk of a seizure.”

  “Sean, please. I just didn’t need any help, okay?”

  “All right, all right. You need anything else?”

  Elise stopped, puffing her cheeks. “Actually, I need chicken stock but there’s none in the pantry.”

  “You need one from the reserves?”

  She nodded.

  “We’re not supposed to be taking from the reserves,” he said.

  “It’s just one can.”

  “It’s not just the one can. It’s the principle of the thing.”

  “Then you can explain to my brother and his wife why your principles made their food dry.”

  Sean and Elise stared at one another until they both cracked smiles. Sean laughed. “God forbid. I would never hear the end of it.”

  Whenever Michael and Kelly visited—which thankfully wasn’t often—there was always something not good enough for them. They never said anything outright, but they had an attitude about them, a snootiness. Sean just needed to tolerate them for a week and it would be over. Any more and Sean was sure they would end up killing each other.

  Sean went toward the door leading down to the reserves. His wife’s voice stopped him. “Were you out chopping wood?”

  “Yep.”

  “I chopped a bunch yesterday.”

  “I just had to clear my head.”

  “Of what?”

  Sean read the stress in his wife’s face. She didn’t need the extra burden of what his boss had told him, not with her brother and his wife coming into town. “It’s not important,” he said and changed the subject. “Where’s Molls?”

  His wife paused. “Upstairs.”

  “What was that?”

  “What was what?”

  “You hesitated.” Her jaw drew slack, but she said nothing. Sean lowered his chin. “Is he up there too?”

  “Sean, please don’t.”

  “I thought we talked about this.”

  “We did. And we didn’t come to a conclusion.”

  “I came to a conclusion. He’s not supposed to be up there with her.”

  “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

  He scoffed. “Out of nothing.”

  Before his wife could say more, he moved back into the living room. The floorboards creaked under his weight as he rounded the staircase railing. His son spun on the couch to look back at him. “Hey, Dad. The news. There’s something—”

  “Shut that off.”

  “But Dad—”

  “Not now, bud. Shut it off.”

  Sean charged up the steep stairs. When he came to the top, he gripped the rail, pivoted toward the hallway on the left, and walked to the end. A light bass thumped behind the closed door. A movie. To disguise other noises, if he knew anything about teenage boys.

  He reached for the handle but stopped himself. He had always trusted his daughter, and she had done nothing to make him question her judgment so far. But she was sixteen. Sean’s most foolish and rebellious years didn’t start until then. He heard his wife’s words: Be more diplomatic, don’t jump to conclusions.

  He pulled his hand back and rapped his knuckles against the door. Molly opened it ten seconds later. She said nothing. Her boyfriend, Andrew, sat on her bed behind her—on her bed—propped up by pillows. They were both clothed. A good sign.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Your mom said you were up here.”

  “And?”

  “What have I told you about having the door closed?” he whispered.

  “Dad…” she said with eyes wide.

  “No, it’s all right Molly,” Andrew said and looked at Sean. “Sorry, Mr. Cain. I didn’t know that was a rule.”

  The kid had manners, sure. Always spoke politely, played the part of a good guy. Sean had known plenty of guys just like him. Two-faced. Said one thing and did another. Snakes like him would take advantage of girls and leave them crying—for their dads to pick up the pieces.

  Sean pasted on a smile. “Good to see you, Andrew. Didn’t know you’d be over today.”

  “Molly invited me.”

  Couldn’t have guessed that.

  “Mom said it was all right,” Molly said.

  “Your mom is a little more lenient than I am.”

  “She said if I kept the door open—”

  “The door was closed.”

  Molly took a few steps outside and pulled the door shut behind her. Sean nodded to Andrew with a toothless smile before the door clicked. “We weren’t doing anything.”

  “I know that, sweetie,” he whispered.

  “Then why are you being weird about this?”

  “Because it’s my job.”

  “Well, you’re doing great at it.”

  He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge between them. “Please just keep the door open, okay? I’ve told you your whole life: if you knock down one barrier, you get momentum. Soon, the other barriers aren’t so hard to break down too. You’ll end up doing things you never dreamed of.”

  “I don’t need a lecture, Dad.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Yes, you are.”

  He raised his hand toward her and pumped it a few times to tell her to stop.

  She said, “We’re not like that.”

  “Not now, you aren’t. Just be careful. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

  It had happened sometime when he wasn’t paying attention, her drifting from him. When she w
as a kid, they were always close. They would spend hours together, go on father-daughter dates. She talked to him about everything. Something had changed after the move, or maybe before that and he had never realized.

  “You know I love you, right?” She nodded, and he kissed her forehead. “Keep the door open.”

  As he walked away, he watched her return to her bed. Return to him. He hoped she wouldn’t let the slow, creeping decay of her values take hold. Change for the worse never happened overnight. It was always slow, like a cancer. It was so easy and gradual, that change. So easy to rationalize that the bad behavior is actually good.

  The human heart—so easily convinced.

  Michael

  Michael had seen snow this bad before, but that didn’t make navigating through it easier.

  The Appalachian terrain forced the luxury SUV to work hard just to stay on the roads. Or at least where he thought the roads were. Couldn’t be sure. Most were unpaved except for the main routes. And in hick country, there wasn’t a snowplow that would touch them.

  The GPS on his cell phone had taken him into the center of no-man’s-land and then dropped its signal. Every house he passed was a mile away from the last. Rusted cars were scattered across many of the properties. Huge volumes of smoke poured from brick stacks. The smell of fire lingered in the crisp air.

  Michael tried rubbing the windshield with his coat sleeve. No help. It was fogged with snow that stuck and froze instantaneously. The side windows were the only ones clear enough to see through. He cranked up the heat.

  “Maybe we should pull over,” Kelly said.

  “And do what? The forecast said it’ll be like this all night.”

  “I can’t see a thing.”

  “Neither can I, but if we stop, we’ll get stuck.”

  Kelly, her blonde hair poking out from under her black cap, leaned forward and stared out the front window. “How far are we from the house?”

  “Goddamn it, Kelly. I don’t know. My phone’s not working for shit right now,” he said, punching his fingers against the mounted display.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “What? Damn?”

  “Are you going to talk like that in front of the kids?”

  “It’s just—I haven’t had data in over an hour.”