OCTOBER 20
09:14 AM
Max had an image in his mind of wildlife for miles around startling and scattering upon hearing his blurted-out curse.
Unfortunately, there was no wildlife around. Too bad, because he could have used some assistance, even if it was an elk to stare at him in wonderment.
He'd been - well, to be honest with himself, he'd been lazy and complacent. Assuming the road was good and he could just put the proverbial hammer down and keep on going.
He hadn't counted on a shaded corner hiding a patch of unmelted ice.
Luckily for Max and for the truck, the ditch was very shallow and caused no damage to the rig. Unluckily, it was wet and slick with leaves, and angled just enough that he couldn't work it back onto the road, even after throwing the tire chains on the accessible side of the drive wheels.
He contemplated - for a split second - detaching the trailer and getting the truck out on its own, then trying to drag the trailer back to the road. It was not worth the risk of losing the entire cargo when the trailer's "landing gear" - support legs - were set into the wet, soft ground.
"Damn it!" Max shouted, kicking the back end of the tractor, sending the mud flap and its metal bracket clattering to the ground.
He stared at the broken mudflap for a moment. All he'd done was kick at it, and the spring steel, which held it on the truck while being battered by debris and gunk thrown up from the rear wheels, and folded over accidentally by the occasional reversing move, had just snapped right off.
Reflecting on his encounter with the refueling site earlier, he had a thought.
Am I really that much stronger than I was before? he wondered.
"I'm so going to get myself run over," Max mumbled to himself. He was sitting in the cab of the truck, completely filthy from wrestling the other set of chains on the tires on the ditch-side. He also had the majority of a nylon tow strap wrapped around himself several times, with the hook ends dangling below his chin like a ghost's chains, clanking occasionally as they bumped together.
And now he was going to do something he never would have dreamed of risking a few days earlier.
A few months earlier, he corrected himself. Whatever.
He selected Drive on the electronic transmission, feeling the clunk as the drivetrain took up the slack. he gave it a tiny bit of throttle and set the idle control, so that the truck was under very light acceleration. The drive wheels spun briefly until the chains met resistance from the ground, and then the truck began to grumble under load.
Max hopped out, hurried to the front of the truck, and slipped the tow hooks on the strap around the pin in the front bumper/frame. Turning around to face away from the rig, he stepped forward until the strap was taut, and took a breath.
"Here goes," he murmured, and threw all his weight into the straps.
For a moment, nothing happened except Max strained against the impossibly heavy machine. Then, to his absolute shock and surprise, he felt it start to roll.
Holy shit! he mentally gasped, and dug in even harder. One hoof step - he'd moved the truck an entire hoof step. Two hoof steps. Half a body length!
Max altered his trajectory to pull more sharply out of the ditch, and the truck, he was gobsmacked to realize, followed him. Stepping onto the tarmac, he began to scramble on the smoother surface, but bore down and stamped his hooves into the asphalt, as if that would give him more purchase.
As he reached the double-solid yellow lines in the center of the road, he realized the strap behind him was beginning to slack. Picking up a little speed, it dawned on him that he was so sure this wouldn't work that he hadn't thought of how to unhook once the truck got moving.
A couple of terrifying moments later, he'd managed to kick one hook loose from the tow pin, and spin around a couple of times to shed the strap from his body. He darted back to the driver's side, hopped onto the running boards, climbed in through the still-open driver's door, and stood on the brakes, bringing the machine to a halt a few inches from the guardrail on the opposite side of the road from where it'd started.
Max sat there clinging to the steering wheel for a couple of moments, panting heavily from both exertion and surprise.
"I can't... believe... that fucking worked," he said to no one in particular.
With everything stowed and the truck relatively undamaged (but roadworthy - if not necessarily legal any more thanks to Max's buck to the mudflaps), the trip south resumed.
Only lost about half an hour, Max figured. He was still dirty and grimy, but he had no interest in opening up the truck and having a shower in the middle of nowhere. He'd stop in Fairbanks around 3 or 4PM and have his rest and cleanup there.
Once again, radio calls were unanswered. Max wished he had a means to transmit continuously, or at least repeatedly, so that he didn't have to divert his attention from the road to make a radio call every now and then. He'd missed the ice that way, and probably more than a couple of animals had avoided being seen in much the same way.
For some reason, he chose to try the satellite radio again, but it too had nothing to share.
This is pointless, he lamented.
No, it's not, he chastised himself seconds later. You'd never forgive yourself if you stayed put and then learned somebody was looking for help somewhere else.
At least the scenery was improving the further south he got. Green grass was prevalent more often than not, and forests and the like. Trees and forests period were a bonus - back north, above the Arctic Circle, there was literally nothing.
Max snorted as he passed a sign nailed to a gate leading to a property: INSURED BY SMITH & WESSON. Fair enough, buddy, I'll give you a pass. These were the kind of things Max missed by flying in and out of Deadhorse every time he went back home, he figured.
The sign did give him pause, though. He didn't have anything worth calling a weapon, and even if he had had something, he wouldn't have been able to fire it in this condition. Maybe it was a needless worry, but he was concerned about the mental state of anyone he might find. He was, of course, hoping that anyone he came across would be just as happy as him to find another living soul. But with this disaster came the absence of government and law, and what would follow would surely be chaos and anarchy. Maybe whoever he found (or vice versa) would consider the truck he was driving, and its contents, worth more than his life?
Maybe I should bring an ax up from the equipment locker, he mused.
A little over 90 minutes out of Fairbanks, specks of water began appearing on the windshield. After a few moments, Max realized they were falling as white crystals of snow, just cold enough to maintain their shape in the air; once they touched the window or the hood, or anywhere else like the ground, they burst into water droplets.
Max wrestled with the windshield wiper controls for a few moments before getting them to turn on. The blades arced across the window, sending the moisture off to the sides and letting Max continue to see the empty road.
He glanced at the temperature gauge on the dash. 34 degrees. Not bad, especially coming from 18 below at the start of his journey. Hopefully, this wouldn't be the end of it, though.
Even though it wasn't time yet - Max tried to keep his radio calls on a schedule, hour by hour - he grabbed the mic and spoke.
"North Slope Support 30, about an hour anna half out of Fairbanks, and if anybody out there cares, it's snowing."
As he was about to hang the mic up, the radio crackled, and he nearly drove off the road another time. He dropped the mic, and steadied the truck while he listened.
All he could tell was that there was noise on the radio. It was hard to decide if it was just noise - interference from something automated still ticking over nearby - or if someone was actually trying to call him.
After about thirty seconds, the crackling stopped. Max realized he was still driving down the road - in fact, he'd subconsciously pressed harder on the accelerator, and the truck was pushing 80. He backed off and stood up to reach the microphone, intent on talking again.
"If... if someone just tried to call me, I could tell you transmitted but I couldn't pick you up," he stammered. "Keep trying, and I hope I'm getting closer to you. I'm coming to Fairbanks. I'm about 90 minutes out. Keep trying. I'm listening."
He got his trembling hoof to the mic hang-up clip that time, and hung up the mic, then let his hoof fall to his side, all in silence. He kept one eye on the road and the other on the faceplate of the radio.
Suddenly, more static. Not even one bar out of five on the signal meter, but there was something being transmitted.
This isn't coincidence. This is real.
This time, Max's increased pressure on the accelerator pedal was deliberate.
He had to back off the throttle again, as the curves were just too tight for the heavy truck and trailer. As he thundered over the Chatanika River bridge, the highway straightened out, giving him a chance to take a hoof off the wheel again.
"North Slope 30 here," he called out. "I'm about 20 miles outside Fairbanks. Is somebody there?"
A few seconds later, a male voice crackled through the static. "Hey, pal. Tell me you're for real!"
Max laughed and bounced up and down in the seat, punching the air with his free hoof. "I was gonna ask you the same thing, friend," he responded. "Where are you?"
"Fort Wainwright," the voice answered. "I took over the hotel."
"Army?" Max asked. "How many you got there?"
There was a pause. "Sorry, pal. It's just me."
"Oh," Max understated. "Sorry, man."
"It's okay. I guess I don't have to ask you now if you're here to save my ass."
"I might not be the cavalry, but I am on my way. Do you know if it's safe out around you?"
"Safe as can be, buddy. I'm on a military base. Fences all around. The biggest thing I gotta worry about are squirrels."
"Okay then. I should be there in half an hour tops." Max's mind raced on how to ask what was nagging at his mind. "It's gonna be good to see another person. It might answer a lot of questions I have."
There was a humorless chuckle over the radio. "Person. Right. See ya in 30."
Max wasn't familiar with the base, so he just followed the highway and the road signs indicating the route. Driving into Fairbanks, he was stunned to see such a large city (by comparison to where he'd come from) so utterly deserted.
All the power was out, of course, so the traffic signals were dark. It didn't matter, because there was no traffic at all - not even stalled vehicles abandoned in the road by their disappearing drivers. Once again the whole mystery nibbled at Max's brain, trying to rationalize something that didn't make an ounce of sense.
Pulling onto South Gate Road, Max realized that his forward progress was going to be halted pretty immediately. Across a set of railway tracks, a guardhouse sat with double runs of fencing blocking the road.
As the truck pulled up, though, Max caught movement from behind the shack, and was dumbfounded to see a blue-colored miniature horse creep out from around the corner. No, not horse - unicorn, judging by the protrusion atop its head.
Max disembarked from the cab and hurried to the fence, speechless.
"North Slope, I presume?" the creature said with the same voice Max had heard on the radio.
Max shook his head and regained his senses. "Sorry. Yeah. Name's Max. Max Morley."
"Duncan MacAllister," the unicorn said with a smile. "Good to meet you. I'd let you in, but there's no friggin' power to run the gate."
Max blinked and held up a hoof, like he was holding up one finger in the "wait" gesture. "Maybe I can help with that." He hurried back to the compartment for the on-board generator, primed and fired it up, and dragged the junction box up to the gate where Duncan was standing.
"Were'zis meed ta goh?" Max said, the end of the cable clenched between his teeth.
Duncan blinked, then grinned. "Hang on a second," he said, and darted into the guard house.
A short time later, the truck was parked in front of the on-base IHG Hotel, and the two survivors were standing outside.
"So I bet you can tell me just what the hell happened," Max said.
Duncan blinked. "Me? Why?"
"Because of that," Max said, gesturing to Duncan's forehead. When he was met with a blank look, Max mimed a spire jutting out of his own skull. "The horn."
"...Nnno," Duncan said hesitantly. "Why would you think I could tell you anything because of that?"
Max sighed. "Before I woke up, I had a dream or a vision or something of millions of you unicorns doing some kind of magic or something."
Duncan shook his head. "Whatever happened to us, I have no idea what it was, besides the obvious. I just woke up like this one day four months ago."
"Four mon-" Max stammered. "You've been here all this time??"
"I don't have the resources to get anywhere, like you did," Duncan said, nodding to the semi-truck. "I was waiting for the military to show up. I figured that'd be the most likely way to get rescued - that they'd show up here eventually."
"You're not in the service yourself?"
Duncan shook his head 'no' again. "I'm a professor over at UAF. Or was, I suppose. There wasn't enough resources over there to survive on, so I moved here. The military rations and supplies have been keeping me going since late June."
"Since late June," Max said flatly. "Tell me how that works. I went to bed on the night of May 22 and woke up five days ago."
Duncan's eyes widened in surprise. "How can that be? You don't look emaciated as one would being comatose for that long. And you certainly wouldn't have survived without food and water."
"Tell me about it," Max nodded. "Anyway. Can we go inside to chat? As much as I love standing outside in near-freezing temps."
"Oh! My apologies, of course, come on in," Duncan said. He turned and began to walk towards the building. Max studied his new co-survivor curiously. Besides the blue eyes and muddy blue coat, he had a shock of off-white hair ('mane', Max reminded himself) and tail. Just beside that tail, emblazoned on the unicorn's rump, was a picture of an open textbook, squiggly lines representing text.
"What's with the ass tattoo?" Max asked after they'd navigated the maze of plywood barricades blocking the elements out of the lobby of the hotel.
"The...?" Duncan said with mild shock. He looked back at himself. "Oh! That." He looked back over to Max. "I presumed it was a categorizational mark of sorts. That is, when I was working on the theory that we'd been, ehem, abducted by extra-terrestrials, transformed, and set back on the planet to be observed. Kind of like tagging a bear or elk when you release them into the wild."
Max didn't want to admit he'd entertained the alien abduction idea himself. "Um, okay," he said.
"By yours, and the truck you arrived in, is it safe to say you're a firefighter?"
"Yeah," Max nodded, then caught on to what the professor had said. "Wait. Mine?"
Duncan looked bemused. "I take it you haven't had a chance to take full stock of yourself yet?"
Max bent around to look over his shoulder, and almost fell into a dog-chasing-its-tail routine because of it. To his surprise, he caught a glimpse of a picture on his own behind, depicting an antique fire nozzle squirting three droplets of water on a cartoonish-looking flame.
"What the hell," he murmured. "And the answer is no, I haven't had reason to size up my butt." He tried to reach back to touch the image, finding it was not a tattoo nor some other kind of ink. His fur simply changed color where necessary to make up the picture.
"Let's go and get something to eat," Duncan suggested, breaking Max's reverie. "I have quite the buffet set up."
The dining room of the hotel was set up with several tables with cases of prepackaged MRE meals on them.
"This row is chicken with noodles," Duncan said, gesturing to one table. "Over here is vegetarian taco pasta. You might have noticed we don't have much tolerance for meat in this form. It seems red meat is worse than white or dark meat or fish, but-"
"What do you mean, we don't have much tolerance for meat?" Max interrupted.
Duncan looked at him blankly. "What have you been eating for the past five m- oh, right, you haven't. Well, what have you been eating for the past five days?"
"Cereal, crackers, some cheese that was in the rehab kit, stuff like that."
"Interesting," Duncan said. "Well, I couldn't stomach red meat all of a sudden after I found myself like this, and trust me, that was a big change for me. I'm no vegetarian - at least, I wasn't, but it seems I'm more of one now."
"You're kidding me," Max said, his expression deflating and his ears flattening to his skull.
"Sorry," Duncan said. "You can try if you want - the meat menu items are over there in the corner. But you might want to keep a bucket handy and a bottle of water just in case."
Max decided to alter the course of the conversation a little. "I wouldn't mind a bottle of water if you have one."
"Sure! They're over here in the vestibule," Duncan answered, leading Max out of the room again. "I keep them over here so they're at least a little cool." An alcove to one of the side doors off the lobby was stacked with cases of water. Duncan reached to a case with the plastic layer torn open and picked up a bottle with a hoof, handing it over to Max. "I find the easiest way to open them is-"
Max took it in his hoof, in that peculiar way he found he could grip things, and went to grip the cap in his teeth, then turn the bottle. Instead, he cleanly bit the neck of the bottle right off, shearing it from the container and splashing water all over his hoof, fetlock, and muzzle.
"...Or, you could do that," Duncan said.
Max spit the still-intact cap and neck of the bottle out. "Didn't mean to," he said, feeling around his mouth with his tongue for any damage. Finding none, he tipped the ripped-open, three-fourths-full bottle to his mouth and emptied it. When he was done, he offered the bottle back to Duncan. "Haven't you found that, that you're way stronger like this than you ever were before?"
Duncan shook his head, taking the bottle and studying the gnashed top. "I'm no more powerful than when I was teaching mechanical engineering." He placed the bottle into another open case, which was collecting empties. "I gather you're suggesting you weren't this strong before?"
"Well, I was a firefighter," Max scoffed, "so I was fit, but not pull-trucks-out-of-ditches strong."
"Really?" Duncan's eyebrows retreated into his mane. "That's impressive."
"Yeah, I ditched the stupid thing on an icy curve, and found out I had enough oomph to pull it out with it helping me along."
"Wow," Duncan said. "I wouldn't mind gauging your strength when we have time. We should record benchmarks for what we can do."
"Okay," Max said, "but I have a question. Do you plan to stay here? 'Cause I don't. There's got to be more people out there, and we need to find them."
Duncan pondered it for a moment. "I guess it's a good idea," he shrugged. "As I said, I stayed here because I figured the military would come to me. And the reason I've stayed here now, is because I simply didn't have the resources to move myself. And I didn't feel like galloping all alone in some random direction." He smiled.
"So you're up for coming with me?"
"Sure," Duncan nodded. "How soon?"
Max almost answered "Right now", but reconsidered. "I suppose a day or two rest for me won't hurt, and you'll need time to pack stuff up. Right?"
"Pack?" Duncan laughed. "I'm hardly planning to take my clothes with me." True enough, like Max, Duncan was not wearing a stitch. "I may want to grab some notes and materials from my office at the university, including a computer or two, especially if you can run power for them. Other than that? We can take some of this, but I don't have anything else to bring along."
"Okay," Max said after taking it all in. "Well, like I said, a pause for rest is right up my alley. In fact, since I've been driving all day..."
"Say no more," Duncan said. "I should have realized this sooner, I'm sorry. Let me show you to the rooms."
Max followed the unicorn down a hallway across from the front desk, past the defunct elevators. The first room, 101, had a door with a duct-taped handle assembly on it, the door partially open. "This is mine," Duncan said. "Found a way to jimmy the balcony glass door and then shut it again without breaking it, so I was able to get the door open from inside." Duncan walked to the next door down. "Of course all of them are free. We'll have to find one that we can break into from outs-"
Duncan cut himself off as Max simply turned around, put his hoof to the door, and gave it a swift buck. The door splintered around the jamb, and completely separated from the handle portion, which cartwheeled into the room as the door popped open.
"Got enough data yet, Doc?" Max smirked.
"...Never mind," said Duncan.
Max got up, after a relatively quick but restful nap, in the late afternoon/early evening and found Duncan trying to carry several candles to the lobby.
"Whatcha up to?" he asked.
"Setting up for some light for the evening," Duncan explained. "If I need to pack up some things, I - oop."
Max dodged a couple of larger candles as they fell from Duncan's one-forelegged carry and tumbled to the floor. "Forget all that," he said. "Give me five minutes and a place to run a cable inside."
"What? Okay," Duncan said, setting down the candles on a nearby chair and following Max to the main doors.
"I fink thih ih goin' to be theh moph uved peef of theh hruck for a hwhile," Max said through his jaw clenched around the generator's extension cable as he dragged it through the doors.
"It certainly is handy," Duncan observed. He led Max over to where a couple of floor lamps stood, and helped plug them in. "It'll be interesting to see this place lit up with artificial light again."
"Go ahead and flip the switch," Max said, and momentarily, two dusty torchiere lamps came to life.
"Outstanding! Thanks for the help," exclaimed Duncan. He headed back to his room to gather some items. Meanwhile, Max went to the rack of literature near the front desk and studied it.
"Looking for things to do?" Duncan quipped when he returned with his things.
"A road map," Max said. "Not sure which way to go next, want to plan out our options. You got any ideas? Ah-hah." He snatched up a road atlas and took it over to the table.
"Well, unless you can fly, I think driving is our best option."
"Right," Max nodded. "So we're talkin' the Alcan, I guess."
"I guess," Duncan agreed.
"Dangit, we need a Canadian map book," Max said, leafing through the pages. "This stops just inside the border. Okay well, if I remember correctly the road goes to the Yukon and its capital city. What is it, Whitehorse?"
Duncan cracked a smirk. "Fitting," he said.
"Ha ha. It's ..." Max studied the overview page. "Looks like it's about 300 miles to the border. So let's say five hours. Six in case something happens. Sounds like we might need to stop there for the night, try to find a map in the checkpoint, and go from there."
"Should we take our passports?"
Max glanced over at his comrade. "I don't have mine," he deadpanned.
"It's okay, my picture's out of date," Duncan laughed. "Hopefully they take pity on us and let us in."
"Shall we do that, then?" Max asked. "Ready ourselves tonight, get out of here at first light tomorrow, and make a run for the border?"
"Oh man, I could do with a Cheesy Gordita Crunch," Duncan said. "But I probably wouldn't stomach it. Anyway, yes, let's do that."
"Right," Max nodded. This is gonna be one interesting road trip.
OCTOBER 21
9:02 AM
The truck, packed even more full with a dozen or two cases of water bottles and MREs, rolled out of the gate of Fort Wainwright and headed briefly northwest again, to head to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. They didn't bother closing the gate; in fact, they left a chunk of plywood at the guard house with their names painted on it, the date, and what direction they'd headed, in the off-chance that somebody else was to find it.
It took slightly longer than half-an-hour for Duncan to pick up the items he wanted to bring along. Fitting the stereotype, his office at the university was a mess, full of piles of papers and half-built contraptions. Max idly played with one or two items while waiting to help carry out the things that'd be coming with them. It appeared this professor was quite the tinkerer and inventor; maybe this collaboration wasn't a bad idea after all.
"Ready?" Max asked when he saw Duncan stand at the door, looking around and sighing.
"I suppose," Duncan said wistfully. "A shame to leave all the rest of this here, really."
"Maybe if we find help, we can come back and get it."
Duncan smiled wanly and nodded. "Sure," he said. "Let's believe that."
The two men-turned-horses headed out the door and back towards the truck.