State of Emergency

That’s a Navy Seal for you. Oblivious to cold temperatures.

We eat a breakfast of biscuits and cured homemade jerky from Chris’s backpack. After that we saddle up (theoretically) and hit the road again.

The highway starts becoming windier the higher we climb. Chris says it smells like a winter storm, and the sky is now covered with thick, dark clouds.

Great. And I didn’t bring an umbrella.

Every once in a while the road will peek out of the trees and give us a great view of the landscaping below. Chris likes to walk right over to the side of the road and put his boot up on the guardrail. I, on the other hand, am way happier just staying as far away as possible from the thousand-foot cliff. Observing from a distance.

It’s better for me and my fear of heights this way.

My second day with Chris finds us about twelve miles closer to my cabin, and a lot deeper into the forest. There are still no signs of cars or humans, which is just fine with me. That means there won’t be any Omega creeps sniffing around.

We sleep off the road again, but instead of a bed of dirt we settle down on a bunch of bouncy — spikey — pine needles. It could be worse. I mean, I do get to sleep with my head on Chris’s chest all night long.

Yeah. Things could be a lot worse.

At the begi

“Look at those clouds,” I say, tilting my head up. The sky is totally covered with dark, fat clouds. “Do you think it’s rain?”

“I think it’s snow,” Chris replies. “How far is your cabin from here?”

“I’d say about two days. We’re in deep.”

He grunts. I fall into step beside him, pulling my hat a little tighter over my ears. “Do you think we’re heading into a snowstorm?” I ask. “You can tell me. I’m not afraid of the truth.”

“It’s likely,” he replies.

I bite my lip.

“Great. We don’t even have a sled,” I quip.

“We’ll be okay,” he replies, “as long as keep moving and try to get out of the storm as soon as we can.”

I nod. It’s not that I’m scared of a snowstorm, per se, it’s more like I’ve never seen snow, so I don’t know what it’s going to be like. I mean, I grew up in Los Angeles, and the worst weather we got there were thunderstorms. I’ve only seen snow on TV or in the movies. And of course it always looks so fluffy and cute when Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is playing around in it.

“Are you sure we’ll be okay?” I ask.

“Yes, Cassidy,” Chris replies, a shadow of a smile on lips. “It’s just snow, not a nuclear explosion.”

He slips his arm around my waist and kisses my cheek. I blush, which just makes him grin wider, and cross my arms. Trying to conserve heat. It’s just so dang cold. I can literally feel the cold air scraping down my throat every time I take a breath.

We don’t cover much ground because I don’t feel up to it, drawing out our journey. By the time we stop for the night the temperature has dropped so much that my fingers are getting numb. “Don’t talk yourself into freezing to death,” Chris says, a

“Your mom has the coolest gadgets,” I say, shivering.

“Stop shivering,” he replies, ignoring my comment. “You’re going to make yourself colder if you give into it. Think warm thoughts.”

“I am!” I almost shout. “All I can think about are space heaters.”

Chris watches my face for a long time, making me nervous. Once the water is warm enough I get out a package of tea and drop it in.

“What are you staring at?” I finally say, waiting for the tea to steep.

“Your lips are turning blue,” he replies.

“Sure,” I deny. But he’s right. I can feel my lips numbing every second, like they’re being stuck with a million tiny needles. “Ouch.”

Chris rolls his eyes and moves over to me, sitting behind me. He spreads his legs apart and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me back against his chest. Then he boxes me in with all his limbs and starts rubbing my arms up and down.

“Talk about a personal space heater,” I murmur. “I think my tea is ready.”

I take a sip of the hot liquid. Yup. It’s ready. I hand some to Chris. He takes a drink before giving it back to me. The tea doesn’t really have any nutritional value, but it helps get me warm before sleeping. Which is hard, considering the temperature.

“I hope I don’t freeze to death in my sleep,” I comment.

“You won’t.”

“It could happen. People die in the mountains all the time.”

“People who don’t know what they’re doing.”

I purse my blue lips.

“Yeah…?”

Chris chuckles low in his chest, placing his lips close to my ear.

“I won’t let you freeze to death, little girl,” he says. “Relax.”

I try. We both roll to our sides, pressed together to stay warm.

It takes me a long time to go sleep. I’m too tense from the cold. I eventually drop off for a few hours and wake up in the middle of the night. I doze off for a while longer before dawn. At that point Chris shakes me awake.

“Cassidy, wake up,” he says, shaking my shoulders. “It’s snowing.”

I struggle to pull myself upright, unable to feel my hands because they’re so cold. My face is totally frozen. I can barely move my mouth. When I open my eyes all I can see is a fine layer of white covering everything: the ground, the trees, our backpacks. Me. It’s Winter Wonderland central.

“Um…” I can’t think of anything else to say, mainly because I can’t arrange my mouth to say it. “I’m frozen.”

“I can see that.” Chris hooks his arms underneath my shoulders and pulls me upright. I’m stiff.

“Oh, my god,” I say. “I did freeze during the night.”

“You’re just a little chilled,” Chris replies. “As soon as we get moving you’ll be fine.”

Yeah, right. Tell that to the two things on the end of my legs formerly known as feet.

“I’m dying,” I complain.

“You’re cold. Get over it.”

Chris doesn’t have much sympathy for me. He can be lovey-dovey one second and all suck-it-up-cupcake the next.  Such a typical man. At any rate, I forget about making tea or eating breakfast. I just throw on my backpack and trudge up a slippery bank of pine needles to the highway. Chris grabs my hands and hauls me up the last few feet.

“Careful! Geez, I’m too stiff to move quickly,” I say.

“You’ll warm up.”

Maybe.

We walk all day through the snow, freezing our butts off until nightfall, where we make camp again. We don’t sleep long because it’s too freezing — even Chris doesn’t like to stop moving.

We make another six or seven miles by midafternoon before coming to a campground. Snow is covering all the roads, about six inches deep. Every time I exhale, my breath makes little white puffs in the air.

You know it’s cold when you can see your own breath.

The campground is nestled in the big trees off to the left. Down the road to the right there’s a gift shop and a bunch of restrooms. There’s even a restaurant. I see dull orange lights flickering in the windows of the restaurant, which is painted a rusty brown.

“Do you see what I see?” I ask, wanting to make sure I’m not hallucinating.

“Yeah,” Chris replies. “It looks like they’re open for business.”

“No way. It’s got to be a trick.”

“I don’t know.”

I gape at him.

“What happened to Mr. “Everything’s a Trap?” Did we leave him in Los Angeles?” I say.

Chris shakes his head. We make our way through the snow, leaving big footprints behind us. By the time we get close enough to the restaurant, I actually see a sign that says, Survivors Welcome.

I glance at Chris.

“Score,” I say.

He grins. We both pick up the pace and make it across the empty parking lot. There are a bunch of quads and old motorcycles chained up out front. We walk up some creaky steps, open a squeaky glass door and step inside.