The Crew
I'd forgotten I was even holding a beer. My eyes never left the television.
The satellite footage of the Redoubt Volcano eruption looked as if the Earth itself were carving a wound into its own chest — a sight both terrible and sublime.
The picture cut to the studio. The anchor, his face drained of color, turned to the expert seated beside him.
"Doctor, this is another volcano. First Lakagígar, now Alaska. What does this actually mean for us?"
The climatologist on the panel drew a heavy breath before he spoke.
"Hah. What we're looking at is a house that's already on fire — and someone just poured gasoline in through the opposite window. We still don't have an exact measure of the blast. That doesn't matter."
The anchor said nothing.
"The Great Winter has already left Earth's climate system extremely sensitive and extremely fragile. We've crossed the tipping point. A shock this small is enough to bring the whole system down."
"Then what kind of effects should we expect from this eruption, specifically?"
"First, a new ash cloud will ride the jet stream out of the North Pacific and hit the west coast of North America head-on. If the Lakagígar ash came at us from the Atlantic, the same catastrophe is now starting from the Pacific as well."
Silence again.
"When the two ash plumes meet over the continent, the sunlight-blocking effect will amplify far beyond anything we can currently model."
"Doctor, could you put that in simpler terms?"
He paused to gather himself, then reached for an analogy everyone would understand — and that was exactly what made it worse.
He wasn't finished.
"Over the long term, the whole of present-day Canada is very likely to become uninhabitable permafrost — the same as the Arctic is now."
The studio had gone still.
"And the Great Winter will no longer stop at the American border. It will creep south, slowly, across the entire United States, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Those dazzling California beaches and palm trees we used to know… our generation may never see them again. Several generations after us may not, either."
I swallowed without meaning to. The journey south — even that promised land was now forecast to freeze, inch by inch.
There was nowhere to run. The entire planet was turning into a giant freezer.
It isn't about finding somewhere warm anymore. Getting through this without freezing to death will be blessing enough.
I hit the remote and killed the television. In the black glass I saw my own dazed face, and beside it Wolf, watching me with worried eyes.
He must have felt the unease coming off me. He padded over with a low whimper and rested his head on my knee.
I ran my hand through his warm, soft fur and spoke quietly.
"It's alright, Wolf. Once the others get here tomorrow, we'll head farther south."
Saying it out loud actually made it feel true.
I wasn't alone anymore. I had Wolf, and Dave and the others would be here soon. In a world coming apart, I had a small pack at my side. That alone was enough to keep the fear from swallowing me whole.
The next day, after a restless night, I fell into the same routine as always. A jog with Wolf seemed to lift some of the weight that had been sitting on my skull since the broadcast.
Before the others arrive, I need to make one last supply run in town.
Once word of the Alaskan eruption spread, the American logistics network would come apart in a matter of hours. That much was certain.
I drove the Sorento into Boise with Wolf riding along.
The pet shop was the first stop. The place looked nothing like it had the day before. People were packed in wall to wall, grabbing dog food and supplies. Last night's news had reached into people's chests and mashed the panic button that had been sleeping there.
I shouldered through the crowd and managed to come away with ten bags of large-breed kibble and a few packs of treats — whatever was left.
The next stop was supposed to be a big-box supermarket, but the moment I rolled into the parking lot I gave up on shopping. The line of people waiting to get in already stretched out of sight.
No good. The big stores are already a lost cause.
I turned around and changed tactics. On the way back to the truck stop, I'd hit every small shop I could see and buy whatever they still had.
The first convenience store looked as if a swarm of locusts had gone through it. The shelves were stripped. There was nothing left worth taking.
Then my eye caught a jar of lollipops on the counter, filmed with dust. I bought every last one without a second thought.
At the next place I found the owner dropping a steel shutter and chasing customers out. He shouted over the rattle of the metal.
"We're closed! Everybody go home!"
He wasn't shutting down to go home. He was saving what was left for himself.
I let it go and drove on. In the middle of all this, coming away with a little more food for Wolf was going to have to be enough.
Panic was spreading faster than any plague. Civilization's last shopping trip was ending with a whimper.
By the time I got back to the truck stop, an endless line had already formed at the pumps — a column of ants marching toward the end of the world.
Good thing I topped off the fuel and water when I did.
I went back to my fortress, stowed the meager haul I'd managed to scrape together, and waited for my friends. The longer I sat, the worse the restlessness got.
I called Dave more times than I could count, just in case. The signal never connected.
Must be because they're still on the road.
I told myself that and let the hours pass. The ash-gray sky bled into a dark red as the sun went down, and still there was no word from any of them.
I couldn't sit still. I took Wolf and stepped out of the truck. He was thrilled by the unexpected evening walk, tail going like a metronome.
We made a slow circuit of the enormous truck stop, but my eyes never left the entrance that fed in from I-84. Every time a new rig rolled in I looked, hoping. Every time I looked away disappointed. I must have done it dozens of times.
In the end I took Wolf all the way out to the entrance itself.
In the cold night air we stood there like lighthouse keepers, watching the road and saying nothing.
I don't know how long we waited.
Then, far off, a line of three vehicles peeled off the highway exit. A van in front, and behind it two pickup trucks towing travel trailers.
My heart started hammering.
The convoy drew closer. The instant the lead pickup's high beams swept across me —
Honk. Honk!
A familiar horn split the night. In the same breath, Dave shoved his head out the window and his voice came pouring into the dark.
"Chaaaan! Lee Chan!"
The moment I heard him, every scrap of dread that had been sitting on my chest melted like snow. I was grinning before I knew it. They were here. They had finally made it.
I waved them in. Dave saw the signal and swung his truck across the vast lot, pulling up alongside my W990.
Mike's van and the two pickup-and-trailer rigs rolled to a stop in a line. They looked like warriors coming home from a long campaign.
The second the wheels stopped, Dave burst out of the driver's seat and came running.
"Buddy!"
"Dave!"
He threw his arms around my shoulders and didn't even try to hide how glad he was. I pounded his back just as hard.
Frank climbed down from his trailer next, pale as paper, both hands clamped over his groin.
"I… I think my bladder's about to explode. Greetings later!"
He bellowed it over his shoulder and sprinted for the restroom. The sight of him tearing across the lot like that set us off. It had been a long time since any of us had laughed that hard.
Last out was Mike, solid as ever. He stopped in front of me, worn down from the road but looking at me with those same warm eyes.
"Well, Chan. Looks like the Nisku Crew is finally back together."
The Nisku Crew.
It was the unofficial name we'd given each other back at that old, dust-choked loading dock in Nisku, Alberta — the men who'd suffered through the same brutal unload together. Hearing that forgotten name spoken again, here on strange American ground, put a lump in my throat. We weren't coworkers anymore. We were a crew in the true sense: sailors of the same ship, men who had already crossed the same hell.
He held out a hand thick with calluses and went on.
"In a world this ugly, the only people you can trust are the ones who ate the same grease and diesel. Am I right?"
I took his hand and gripped it hard.
"Of course, Uncle Mike."
The warmth that came through that rough, strong palm was more than a handshake. It was a rite — the birth of a new family, ready to cross hell together.
When I grinned, Wolf felt it all the way through me. He wagged his tail hard enough to throw his hindquarters off-center and let out a happy little whine.
Mike's eyes went round.
"Well now. A new friend you've picked up?"
I scratched Wolf's head.
"No. New family."
"Haha. That's a fine thing to say. Mind if I pet him?"
I glanced down at Wolf. He looked Mike over once, then gave a soft awoo and a whimper, tail still going. That was a yes.
Mike and Dave stepped in and ran their hands over his head and back. Wolf stood quietly and soaked it up, clearly pleased.
That was when Frank came back from the restroom, took one look at the three of us, and threw his arms out in that theatrical way of his.
"Well, well. Starting the party without me, are we? Polar Bear, you son of a gun — I missed you."
With Frank in the circle, the reunion was finally whole.
I waved Dave and Frank over to park their pickups and trailers in a line beside the W990. Then, before any of them had even caught their breath, I told them what came next.
"Get your vehicles in line at the pumps. Right now."
"Now?"
"Yeah, now. By tomorrow morning this place is going to be a madhouse of people trying to fuel up. We need to be in that line before it happens."
They didn't argue. They climbed back in and rolled toward the pumps. With tomorrow morning's fuel taken care of, we all sat down together in the truck-stop diner for a late dinner.
Dave's mother was there, and Frank's family too. It was our own private feast, and we made the most of it.
Afterward I invited the three of them into my trailer. We had the road ahead to talk through.
Four men in that space, and the truck suddenly felt like a little command post.
Once we'd sat down, Mike held out a handful of small handheld radios.
"These are for us. Crew-only comms. Now we've got ourselves a real pack."
I watched them talking over each other, loud and alive. This empty steel fortress of mine finally had a heart again.
But I knew what that meant, too.
A heart was also a weakness. Something I would have to protect.