There's a Way

I swallowed, my throat gone dry before I even realized it. On the television, they were talking about how a world slowly freezing over could, at any given moment, come apart all at once.

The anchor asked again, his voice a strange mix of fear and irritation.

"Doctor — then when exactly is this megaquake supposed to happen?"

"How would I possibly know that?"

"I'm sorry?"

"It could happen tomorrow. Or it could stay quiet for a hundred years. What I'm telling you is that if a megaquake started tomorrow, there would be nothing strange about it at all."

The expert panel's grim predictions kept coming.

"Take a look at this footage."

The screen switched to a 3D computer graphic of western North America. A crimson shockwave rippled outward from Alaska, visually shaking the entire Pacific Plate.

"Doctor, what does this graphic mean?"

"This Alaskan volcanic eruption is like slamming one corner of a giant swimming pool. That shockwave is going to throw off the pressure balance across the entire plate, and it'll start snapping the weakest links first."

The anchor had nothing to say to that.

"And right now, the most dangerous place is here — the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the northeastern Pacific."

The graphic zoomed in, and a long stretch of coastline from Washington State all the way to Vancouver Island in Canada began flashing red.

"There's a high probability of a megathrust earthquake occurring here. This is no longer a question of if. It's a question of when."

Silence again.

"If it ruptures, the magnitude will approach 9.0 on the Richter scale. Seattle, Portland, Tacoma, and across the border, Vancouver and Victoria in Canada — every major city in the Pacific Northwest would be destroyed in an instant."

Then a simulation played of a massive tsunami swallowing the cities whole. The footage was infuriatingly well made.

Ah...

The big cities... I have to stay away from them, no matter what.

The television kept broadcasting despair without a pause.

"Buildings will be destroyed and submerged in seawater, and then that water will freeze solid."

The anchor couldn't even blink. He just stared at the doctor, vacant.

"And the danger doesn't stop there. If not Cascadia, then the Hayward Fault in Northern California could recreate the nightmare of the 1906 earthquake that reduced San Francisco to ashes."

The studio had gone quiet.

"And lastly... the most famous time bomb of them all: the San Andreas Fault in Southern California."

The graphic shifted south, drawing a red line across familiar city names — Los Angeles, San Diego, Palm Springs.

I shot to my feet.

I grabbed a map and traced the San Andreas Fault with my finger — and found it ran far too close to our destination, the Central Valley.

I studied the map more closely. Fortunately, the country north of Bakersfield where Dave's aunt's farm sat was just barely outside the fault's direct reach. It was at the southern tip of the Central Valley, a fair distance from the major cities as well. I let out a brief sigh of relief, but it didn't last.

What if a megaquake really did hit L.A. and San Francisco at the same time, in the middle of all this?

Millions of survivors could become something more desperate than any zombie. A situation beyond anyone's control.

That would mean the age of the Great Plunder had begun. Not marauders at the level of a robber gang, like now — a world where everyone regarded everyone else as prey.

And I could already see it: people in packs, flooding toward the place that still had food and water. Right here, into the Central Valley, the so-called breadbasket of America.

We might outrun the ice of the Great Winter and the tsunamis. But imagining a tidal wave of humanity — far more terrifying than either — crashing over the promised land as an inescapable flood made my head spin.

I knew that far too well. What it looked like when refugees who had lost all reason came flooding in at once.

I stood in front of the map, unable to move for a long while. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠My thoughts tangled over themselves.

Until now, I had believed all we had to do was run from the catastrophe of the Great Winter coming down from the north. I was wrong.

This brutal cold, the food shortages, the collapse of society — they were only the opening act. In the face of the real disaster, this planet's vast convulsion as it tried to reset itself, the Great Winter felt like a kind of warm-up.

After enduring Canada's savage cold, California had been something like a utopia to me. And when I had heard about Dave's aunt's farm, I had been filled with a different kind of hope entirely.

I thought if we just made it to the Central Valley, that would be enough...

In the end, even the Central Valley might turn out to be nothing more than a place we passed through. But I didn't see any need to tell my friends about that just yet.

As long as the gas stations still had fuel, the stores still had goods on the shelves, and the roads still existed, we had to be ready to leave for anywhere, at any time.

I also knew that safety did not mean isolation. Even if you built a perfect fortress in the middle of the Arizona desert and hid inside it, the moment the resources within ran dry, that place would be nothing but a tomb.

In the end, human beings could not survive without exchange with the outside world. And if that was true, then when the final moment came, only two choices would be left to us.

Plunder, or trade.

Take what belongs to others by force — or trade what you have for what they have.

Ah. How long can I hold on to my humanity?

There are going to be so many hard calls ahead.

As my thoughts deepened, Wolf tilted his head and stared at me, as if he had read the gravity on my face. I stroked his head and spoke quietly.

"It's okay, Wolf. Let's get some sleep."

He let out a low whine, as if he understood, and settled obediently onto the blanket I had laid out for him.

I forced my tangled mind to settle, and that was how I spent another night.

Early the next morning, Wolf and I started our morning routine without fail. With my friends around, I couldn't go far, so I did a light jog around the inside of the truck stop.

When I ran, Wolf scouted the path exactly two paces ahead. When I walked, he fell in one step off my flank, a shadow. A proud thought crossed my mind that he wouldn't even need a leash — and in the same breath, I ran up against an unavoidable reality.

With a face that was the spitting image of a wolf, putting him on a lead around other people was a courtesy to everyone.

There are going to be times people mistake us for an actual wolf...

While we were walking the truck stop, I ran into a trucker or two who recognized me.

"Hey — Polar Bear, is it?"

I didn't answer.

"A polar bear and a wolf... now that's a hell of a combo!"

I gave a slight nod in return to their greetings.

After I finished my workout, my friends drifted into the diner one by one. Over breakfast, we talked about the next destination. Then Frank turned to Dave.

"Gotta say, feels like we ran from Canada just to wind up back in Canada."

"Frank, I was thinking the exact same thing. We came down thousands of miles and it's still Canadian weather."

"Right? The Americans around here are all losing their minds about freezing to death. For us, it's just home weather."

"Exactly. Last rest stop, there wasn't just one or two guys groaning over clogged oil filters. Haha."

"Ah — but you can definitely tell we've come ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠south. The stores still have stuff on the shelves. This place had a decent amount left, too."

"Yeah? Then let's do some shopping before we head out."

Frank's eyes lit up as he jumped on board. Dave looked at me and added,

"Chan, there's a pet section in the back of the store. You should check it out."

After we finished eating, our group headed to the store. I loaded a cart with as much dog food and treats for Wolf as I could grab, and my friends each picked up what they needed.

Back at the trucks, we loaded the new supplies, and I realized that my trailer — which had once felt almost cavernous in its emptiness — was now packed tight with cargo of every kind.

Mike, watching this, said to me,

"Chan, that space up by the trailer ceiling's going to waste."

"Ah, yeah. It is."

"When we've got some time later, want me to make you a cargo-net shelf? You put the small stuff in the net, pull the lines, and lock it to the ceiling."

"It's just... it's awkward to drive screws or nails into the walls..."

"Haha, don't worry about that. I've got everything from a welder to a tap drill in my van. If I set my mind to it, I can knock one out in no time."

I nodded with a grateful smile at his offer.

We formed up into convoy formation again and rolled out onto the highway.

The scenery outside the window kept changing, but its essence never did: desolation. Abandoned fields, rusted barbed wire, and plastic trash tumbling in the wind. It felt like watching the entire world become a vast ruin in real time.

Around lunch, we made a brief stop at a truck stop near Tremonton, Utah. As if we had all agreed to it in advance, we split up, put down sandwiches as fast as we could, stripped the store of whatever we could grab, and then we were rolling again, racing to make a truck stop where we could end the day before the sun went down.

As I drove, I found myself looking out the window. The same ashen sky. A shortened sun that already seemed to be sinking, even though it was only three in the afternoon.

We were fleeing south like mad to escape the ash and the Great Winter, and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that we hadn't taken a single step out from under that enormous shadow.

It wasn't until we arrived at a truck stop on the outskirts of Salt Lake City to end the day that I checked the electronic logbook.

Since setting out with my companions, we had come another four hundred and thirty-five miles south.

I ran the remaining fuel and distance in my head. With the fuel we had filled up — even paying a premium for it — we could make it to Dave's aunt's farm without much trouble.

But a nameless unease lifted its head in a corner of my mind. Then my father's voice, one I had forgotten, seemed to sound in my ear.

"Chan."

It hit me all at once: we must not arrive at Dave's aunt's farm having squeezed out every last drop of fuel.

It wasn't just because of the earthquakes. The last stop might be another beginning — and there was no telling what kind of hardship might be waiting there.

I picked up the radio.

One after another, a round of 10-4s came back over the channel. A moment later, my friends filed into the trailer one by one.

They found their seats on the sofa and chairs as if they had already grown used to the place, each holding a beer can or a soda pulled from the fridge, or a glass of whiskey.

I pointed at the map and started talking.

"You've all seen it. People in the American heartland are starting to take this disaster seriously now. Gas stations are going to get harder and harder to find, and eventually fuel is going to be the thing that holds us back."

Dave tilted his head.

"Still, we've got a pretty decent stockpile, don't we? Isn't it enough to get to my aunt's?"

"By the numbers right now, yes."

Mike picked up where Dave left off.

"But that's only in the best-case scenario. The road could be blocked and we'd have to detour, or something unexpected could blow up. You never know how the world works. We need a backup plan."

"Right. So what kind of plan have we got?"

The moment I said it to my friends, I regretted it. In a situation like this, what kind of plan could there possibly be?

The silence stretched, and no one came up with a sharp alternative. Restaurants were shutting their doors. Gas stations were running dry. We had no options left. All we could do was pray that somewhere among the truck stops we passed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠through, a pump still had fuel in it.

An awkward silence still filled the trailer, and my friends' faces were nothing but dark.

Then Gunner, who had been quietly drinking Jack Daniel's, broke the silence.