Chapter 2: Where are we, and how did we get there?

(June 2, Day 11, Galena, Alaska)

Paul taxied shut the engine off and exited the plane, producing his ID for the officer approaching. Before the trooper took it, he looked at the nine other people climbing out of the Cessna 207. He then said, "I won't ask you for your Pilot's License if you are refugees."

"I guess you could call us that," Paul replied. "Here is my Oregon Driver's License. We were on a float trip up on the Kobuk River when whatever happened took place. The only people left alive in Kobuk were those three little kids, and the wife and daughters of the family that was on the trip with us."

"Stan Johansen," the trooper introduced himself. "I can't believe anyone would run a float trip before the rivers quit flooding. I bet it was kind of hairy?"

"Parts were, but not until after the pilot picked up the Harts," replied Paul. "The pilot, some guy named Phillip, was supposed to take them to Bethel, but Lana said he got really sick and took them to Kobuk instead. Then her husband, who was having a cow over his business, got the last seat on the commuter flight out. When the plane never returned for us four days later, we decided to float down the river. We ended up in Kobuk."

Stan asked, "The guy left his wife and kids in Kobuk? Do you know where the commuter was headed?"

"No, Lana might. I never asked," Paul answered. "Lana, come here a sec, please? Where was Ernie's commuter headed?"

Lana looked down, and answered, "Nome and then to Anchorage on Alaska Airlines."

"Well, we lost contact with our Kotzebue post last week," Stan explained. "Two of our officers from Nome went up to investigate, and we haven't heard from them since."

"It sounded like a street gang had taken over the ATC mike," Paul relayed. "They wanted our women, the guy said, in exchange for food or fuel."

"Damn!" Stan cursed. "One of the officers who went is a woman. Listen, you need to tie the plane down. I will show you how. If you were the only ones left alive in Kobuk. I doubt the owner cares too much if you borrowed it, but we should take care of it, right?"

"Right, officer," Paul agreed. "Can we get something to eat?"

"You bet," Stan answered as they finished the tie down. "I'll fill you in on the details that I know."

Stan led them to a small café in the village and Paul noticed that a Native couple and their son were running it. As they served the hearty lunch from the menu with two choices, "Take it" and "Leave it", another trooper, and an Air Force pilot joined the group.

Stan introduced them, "This is Trooper Lieutenant Dawson and Lieutenant Rogers. Rogers here flies the A-10 Warthog parked on the end there."

Stan began to tell the story thus far, "IT as they call it began in May, and around the 22^nd the Red Chinese launched a Bio-chemical attack on us, the Russians and basically everyone. The president took no chances, and figuring they were in cahoots with the terrorists, took out all of Red China, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Indonesia, and God only knows where else. I'm just glad we are north of the radioactive cloud from that mess!"

Dawson filled in, "Anyway, people started dying off by the millions in the Lower 48 and southern Canada. Here we got some of whatever it was in Nome and Kotzebue, but they skipped the Interior except for Fairbanks. A lot of the communities suffered death from disease, poison, or something we still don't know about. Since the forensics labs are in Anchorage and Fairbanks and they got almost a full dose, we have no idea when we will know for sure."

Rogers said, "They told me and four others, Hooker, Graham, Lawrence and Moore, not to come back. I haven't raised Eilson Air Force Base in a week. We just fly patrols to look for signs of life. As best as we can estimate, Nome is down to around 93 people. That's pretty sad when you consider a population before IT happened of 3500 people."

"The Troopers would have been hit harder, except we were on patrol in other areas when the concentrated part hit," Dawson explained. "Besides Anchorage, and Fairbanks, we lost contact with our men in King Salmon, Dillingham, Iliamna and most of South Central. Kodiak and the south part of the Kenai Peninsula have a handful of survivors, but they are afraid to go to Anchorage until we can get someone to say that it is safe to do so."

"That's where Lawrence and Moore are today," replied Rogers. "They are doing flyovers of the Fairbanks and Anchorage areas with some sort of detector they borrowed from Nome to detect any nuclear or chemical activity. Hooker and Graham flew recon over to Asia day before yesterday. They were a thousand miles from China and picked up radiation. They said it actually glows in the dark now. We picked up a Coast Guard C-130 crew from Shemya, and they are basing out of Nome now. They fly ocean patrols, but the Aleutians and the Peninsula have no survivors that they could see. There is a KC-135 at Nome that was stationed at Eilson with us."

Stan continued, "Anyway the Coast Guard guys saw thirty or forty heat signatures on the FLIR in Kotzebue, around the airport, and another dozen in the village. That is why we sent Healy and Hayes to investigate. Nobody comes outside when the plane flies over, but there are fifteen or so planes on the ground there. From what we gather from our intelligence and your information, Kotzebue is not friendly territory at the moment."

Paul asked, "What about the West Coast? We live in Portland. Is there anything left to go home to?"

"Paul if you had family that was not with you," Stan assured him, "you have my deepest sympathies. What they showed on the news from outside was rampant looting and murder in the streets all up and down the coast. They even shot the TV crews and made gang signs for the cameras. That brings us to the present. We need to worry about the here and now."

"What vocational skills do you bring us?" Dawson asked. "Besides being a pilot that is?"

"I am, err... was rather, a Computer Networks Specialist," Paul answered. "My wife and Lana ran a plant nursery together. You know, a greenhouse sort of thing? They started vegetables and flowers and things for people to plant. Mona used to be a Paramedic before that."

Dawson observed, "I guess we might need someone to get the computers back up once we get to that point, but people with a knowledge about growing vegetables, we will most definitely need. Anything else?"

"Don't bank on me as much use as a pilot," Paul admitted, "That we even got here was a divine miracle. I just prayed that with my son reading the manual that God would let us find safety and someone alive. Beyond that, I'd rather not go up until I really learn how. I used to be a builder, before all the stinking environmentalists made everything so darned difficult. I can do that, and I guess I seem to have a good personal relationship with the Lord to have gotten out of a couple fixes since three days ago."

"Don't forget those two little ones I wrote off as good as dead," reminded Mona. "Little Berry insisted that we pray for them, so we did. Sunny was gone already as far as I could tell, and look at her now. I can't explain it, but there it is. Evidently Paul just found God after this all happened."

Rogers then asked, "What faith are you? I mean like Catholic, Jewish, or?"

"I am whatever the Lord wants me to be," Paul replied, "especially after what I have been seeing. I think I would be called a born again Christian. What flavor, I don't even know."

Rogers noted, "The Lord touched someone else named Paul that had no previous use for Him once, and Paul turned out to be one of His most important messengers. He wrote several books in the New Testament."

"I'll have to read it sometime," said Paul. He though to himself, "A preacher? You have got to be kidding. I just prayed in desperate situations. Why would God choose me? God only knows, I guess."

"Well Reverend Barnes won't be needing his copy anymore," Stan commented. "His wife and kids died of this stuff, and he was raising hell and cussing God the other day over it, and it started hailing baseball size stuff. It hit him in the head and dropped him like a rock."

Dawson added, "Yeah, and then it stopped. I'll say this much, nobody's been out there cussing at God since!"

Stan's radio went off and he went to the Trooper Post as the families finished lunch. The woman who ran the café came to pick up the plates. The youngest girl, Sunny began talking to her, "You are my Aunt Sharon, aren't you?"

"I don't think so, Honey," Sharon said. "My family came from up north, around Ambler."

"That's Uncle Brian, and he is my cousin Freddie," Sunny continued, "I am Sunny Koyuk, and this is my brother Tommy, and my sister Berry."

"Brian, come here, hurry," Sharon cried out. "Are you Ginger and Peter's kids? How did you know who we were?"

"An angel told me when I was asleep," answered Sunny. "She said that God would protect us, and bring us to Aunt Sharon and Uncle Brian to take care of."

Sharon and Brian gathered her sister's kids in their arms and welcomed them, learning in the process that their parents were indeed dead. They cried together for several minutes. The rest had gotten up, and Paul was on his way to get the kids' clothes from the plane, when Sharon ran to him and took his arm.

"Mister, I don't know who you are," Sharon cried, "or if you are a man or an angel from God, but thank you for bringing my sister's family here to be with us. You are an answer to our prayers. Thank you so much."

"You are welcome," Paul answered, "Let me get their clothes out of the plane. We have a little bit of food too you can have for them."

The two troopers and the pilot were discussing something, and then Stan and Lt Rogers came to him. Rogers handed Paul the Reverend's Bible, and explained, "Just so you know it, you are now the official clergy in Galena. Your wife said that girl died? Well, that is when she saw the angel. Paul my friend, you have a lot of work to do in the new world. You serve as our liaison with the Lord, and I will personally teach you and the two boys to fly an airplane."

Dawson laughed, and said, "Evidently like General Patton's Chaplain in the Battle of the Bulge, you stand in good with the Lord. Welcome to Galena Brother Paul."

Paul was reeling from the magnitude of this, when Stan came to explain, "Our recon pilots said that they met another KC-135 from Eilson, and took on fuel. There is a caravan of cars and trucks heading down the Parks highway towards Anchorage. That is where they are headed. There are probably a thousand people heading out of the area around Fairbanks. They have pretty much evacuated. The troopers from Nenana and Coldfoot are manning the Post in Fairbanks along with a dozen new recruits. I'm not one for coincidences, Paul, but when you came, wonderful things started happening. Some might call it luck, another just coincidence, but I am not going to do anything but thank the good Lord. What do you say?"

Paul shrugged and he and Stan began to pray. Everyone inside and outside of the café, and a man walking by came and bowed their heads and joined hands with the rest. Paul prayed, "Lord, we thank you for our deliverance from this horrible whatever it was, and thank you that others have survived to give us some hope of carrying on. We know not what the future holds for us, but it is all in your mighty hands. We ask that you bless these good people, and make their contributions worthwhile, and Lord help me to perform this job, this duty, this opportunity that you have bestowed upon me to your satisfaction. In Jesus' name we ask these things, Amen."