Jake drank a quarter of the pail down and belched loudly. He vomited a few moments later and decided to rest before drinking anymore. Slow down, Jake, it isn’t a race. He scooped some out onto his hands and splashed it into his face. It hurt almost as much on the outside as it did going down inside him. Even in the dark, Jake knew his skin was a mess. The water leaked into open sores and cracks feeling like acid. He washed himself some more and the pain lessened. Jake drank what was left sloshing around in the bottom and started lowering the paint can down into the well for a second helping. He continued drinking and bathing and vomiting until he was too bloated and too tired to lower the pail again. Jake nodded off, sitting in a puddle of mud, grateful to be alive and terrified of living another day longer.
Chapter 4
The complete blackness had lifted. Night had given way to morning, or the heavy clouds of shit had finally started to clear. It was grey again, and even that dreary state was a welcome sight. Big flakes of white were falling all around Jake. They had settled on his shoulders and in his lap as he’d slept against the well. Snow in late April wasn’t all that unusual in this part of the world. Jake had seen some truly violent blizzards in spring with substantial accumulations of snow. But this was late May, and this wasn’t snow.
He brushed the deadfall from his arms and shook it free from the top of his bald head. It was like fragments of burnt newspaper, or thinner yet, like charred toilet paper crisped to a dull grey. The first snowfall of a new season. Jake retrieved one more pail of water and set away from his farm. He headed north—or his best guess at north according to where the greater part of the well cover had blasted free—away from the closest detonation point and towards the zone where the shockwave would have eventually petered out. If Mandy and Nicholas had survived, they would’ve likely gone that direction as well.
They’re dead. Give up on that. Be thankful it ended quickly for them. Go north and find survivors. Find someone to help you with your burns… Find someone to talk to.
Jake couldn’t see the sun, but he could see enough around him to know it was still somewhere up there. It was brightest directly above and behind him. High noon. He kept that dull smudge in mind as he made his way. He would eventually make it to Big Bear Valley; even if he strayed off a little to the east or to the west. The Little Saskatchewan River would be at the bottom of that valley, and if the shockwave had lost enough of its force, Jake figured he could re-fill his paint can. The Little Saskatchewan ran into Cooper’s Lake another twenty miles to the west. There would definitely be water there. Unless a nuke was dropped directly into the center of that big lake, Jake felt confident he could sustain himself for weeks. They didn’t call it the Land of a 100,000 Lakes for nothing.
Jake stumbled into the river a day later without even realizing he’d found Big Bear Valley. The land had become so featureless that distances and even dimensions were hard to judge. The forests and roads, the fields and hills—everything Jake had grown up within, and presumed would be there long after he was gone—were no more. The river was filthy, but he drank from it anyway. He had no matches or material to start a fire to boil the water clean. Jake could handle the stomach cramps, the vomiting, and violent diarrhoea of drinking tainted water. If that didn’t kill him, the radiation sickness eventually would. He was living his last days, and he would drink and eat whatever the hell he came across.
Jake walked into the stream up to his crotch and washed the ashes from his arms and neck. He bent over and stuck his head in, allowing the current to clean his sore, blistering scalp. It was almost enough to make him feel like a human being again. He scooped some of the water into his hands and drank. His stomach rumbled, and Jake remembered what it was like to eat. I can only survive on dirty water for a week, maybe two. I need to find food.
A coyote wailed off in the distance. It was the first sound of life Jake had heard since the bombs hit. Up until a short while ago he had hoped to find his wife and son, to hear them calling his name, lost and searching like he was. Jake had given up on that fantasy and settled for the wish of hearing anyone.
The coyote continued to yelp. It was joined by a half dozen more. They’re yipping surrounded him, insistent and frantic. Jake wasn’t the only thing left living that needed to eat. They’re just coyotes. You’ve heard them your whole life. Mangy prairie dogs… nothing more. They would never attack a full-grown man. But Jake wasn’t entirely sure anymore what a coyote would or
