Chapter Text
The manual clock on Dee's bedside table tells him that it's just past midnight when a sharp BANG woke him from his sleep. The sound came from outside, seemingly just a few metres from his window. He flicks the switch on his bedside lamp, letting out an annoyed huff when it doesn't turn on. The power is out. He can hear Heavy moving around on the other side of his bedroom wall, probably doing the same thing as Dee.
Dee sits up in bed. He leans over to peek out the window, and squints at the blackness outside of it. He doesn't see anything that would've made a sound like that, just empty night staring back at him. He's about to go back to sleep when the transformer box on the telephone pole sparks; dots of light bouncing outwards before dissipating on their way to the ground. Well - that would explain everything.
He can hear Heavy's bedroom door open, a moment of silence before there's a murmur of soft voices and footsteps coming towards his door. Someone lightly raps their knuckles on Dee's door, opening it slowly. It's his mom.
"Are you ok?" It's weird hearing his mom speak so softly, and even weirder to see her take on that stereotypical gentleness so often associated with mothers. His mother is not like that. Ever. Something is wrong.
"I'm fine."
"Your dad's on the phone with the electrical company. Transformer blew. Apparently it's been happening all over town." She fully steps into the room. "Do you have a flashlight in here?"
"Yeah, it's in my closet."
"I'll put it in your bedside table - the power might not be back tomorrow and it's supposed to be nasty outside, too. And is your phone charged?"
"Mostly."
"Alright, don't use it unless it's an emergency." His mom opens his closet and palms around a little, eventually landing on the flashlight and moving it to Dee's bedside table. She pulls up his blanket, signalling to Dee that he should lie back down. "Try to go back to sleep."
She tucks the blankets in around his shoulders and kisses him on the forehead, just as another bang rings through the neighbourhood. They both look to the window, the sound seemingly coming from an adjacent street and not their own.
"Safe to say we will definitely not have power tomorrow." Victoria winces. "Sleep tight, we'll figure everything out in the morning."
Dee tries to sleep, but it's hard with the sound of emergency vehicles and electrical company trucks whirring around the streets. Eventually he falls asleep, curled into his blankets as much as he can in his ever-growing colder bedroom.
The next morning, Dee finds it harder than usual to pull himself out of bed. There's a sharp temperature drop between what's underneath his blankets and the ambient air of his bedroom. He curls in on himself for a little bit longer, pulling his blankets up to his ears to warm the near frozen sides of his face.
Eventually, he peeks over his blanket to look at his clock. Just before 9 am. He peers beyond that to look outside. The sky is deep, deep grey, almost black - he would think it was still night-time had he not seen the time. His window is speckled with the remains of a snow flurry, with tendrils of frost creeping up from the bottom of the frame. Dee decides he's spent enough time in bed for the morning, and pulls the blankets off.
That was a mistake - the cold air of his room seems to slap his entire body, racking it with shivers. All Dee wore to sleep was a t-shirt and boxers, and he desperately needs a couple more layers. He acts fast, taking off the t-shirt to put on a tight-fitting long sleeve sweater. It should be a good base layer. He changes boxers and puts on his flannel pyjama pants and the fuzziest socks he has. Better make it two pairs of socks, he thinks, the floor is freezing, The final layer is an oversized hoodie with an inner fleece layer. But Dee still can't help but shiver and yearn for the warmth of his bed.
He begrudgingly thumps downstairs to see who else is awake. Both of his parents are up, and seem busy. They seem to be duct taping the spare sheets over the windows in the kitchen, as well as over the hallway that leads to the living room and his dad's office. There are bins of camping supplies pulled out into the front entryway, and all of the households towels, batteries, candles, and spare bedding organized in piles on the dining table.
"Good morning, Dee." His dad is still cheerful, which is the one normal part of this morning. Dee notices that his parents are both just as bundled up as he is. Glam has some hot pink flannel pyjamas on with a big Twisted Sister hoodie over top. Dee can see a turtleneck sweater poking out as an extra base layer, and thick socks layered underneath his slippers.
"Good morning sleeping beauty." Victoria has some thick-looking black leggings on, two pairs of socks, and her black '2002 High School Grad' hoodie layered over a turtleneck. She has the hood pulled up, messy curls of red hair refusing to be held in place by the hood.
"Good morning." Dee says. "What's..."
"I'll give you the 4-1-1." Victoria rips a piece of duct tape with her teeth, placing it over the sheet Glam is holding over their front windows. "There's been a surge at the power plant. Bunch of transformers blew. Good news: that was the safety feature preventing everyone's houses from going up in flames. Bad news: we're at least 5 days with no power."
"But that means," Dee's brows come together. "No heat."
10 years ago, when the old oil furnace in their home blew, Glam and Victoria were in a bit of a tight spot with money. They relied on space heaters for the first winter, but eventually put together some money to put real electric heaters in the bedrooms. Once that was done, they decided to continue saving up and putting heaters in the rest of the house as they got the money. And that was fine in usual winter circumstances. But Dee can tell that it has to be at least twenty below freezing outside, and they have no electricity for the heaters.
"We'll get through." His dad reassures. "We have plenty of bedding, batteries for flashlights, and a whole lot of winter clothes. It's going to be a cold week, but we can mange."
Dee squints and then shrugs, walking past them into the kitchen to get the crackers he was planning on having for breakfast. He can't look at his phone, he needs to save the battery, and also can't have a coffee. It's a disappointing morning, so detached from his usual routine. He settles with his crackers at the kitchen table, feeling the cold from the furniture leech through his layers. Maybe he needs another pair of pyjama pants underneath these ones.
He decides to move around to make some body heat, mulling around the kitchen until he gets to the taped over window. He puts a hand against it, feeling the cold coming in the house through the sheet almost like a draft. He supposes the sheet is doing something, at least. While the sunlight coming in would probably warm the room, the extra cold seeping right through the glass would cancel it out immediately.
Eating his goldfish, Dee moseys into the living room his parents are prepping, Dee catches his first real look out a window. It's 3/4 piled up with snow, sliver visible sky dark and dotted with tiny snowflakes shooting towards the ground.
"Woah..." Dee almost presses his nose against the glass, standing on tip-toes trying to get a good look outside. This is like January on steroids. "You weren't kidding when you said it'd be bad..."
"Hence our prepping." Glam picks Dee up by the armpits, holding his son at his own eye height. While he would usually detest being picked up like a child, he allows it just this once in favour of seeing what's outside. Dee gets a look over the snow mounded up against the window and gasps. The entire world is white, carved into dunes and sticking to every surface. The road is indistinguishable from the yard, the house's wrought iron fence just barely poking above the snow dunes. Power lines covered in white stand out against the near-black sky. It's a sky that looks ready to drop even more snow onto the ground.
"55cm already, and at least that amount again to come later today." Glam says, setting Dee back down on the floor. "The weather stations are calling it the storm of a millennia. I'd have to agree with them."
"Woah!" Heavy comes thumping into the room. "Let me see!"
Glam picks Heavy up this time, letting the younger have a view of the white outdoors. He has so much energy in the morning, something Dee has never understood. Glam gives Heavy a run down of what happened; the power station, the transformers, and the snow.
"But don't worry." Vicky unfolds a bed-sheet, "We have plenty of food, plenty of water, and a pretty sturdy house. Glam and I spent last night pulling everything we would need from the garage."
"Which was definitely the right call." Glam puts Heavy down to the younger child's dismay. He wasn't done ogling at the snow. "I don't think we could get outside if we tried."
Heavy and Dee sit on the couch, eating goldfish while their parents finish the last of their storm prepping. There's wood piled by the fireplace, all of the downstairs windows covered, and lots of pots and pans filled with water in the kitchen. Their freezer is sure to warm with the power off, so Victoria has the idea to make a new freezer outside. She packs down some snow by the backdoor and puts their frozens underneath an upside-down laundry basket.
It's actually quite genius.
Glam warns the boys that they aren't going to try to keep the upstairs warm, just downstairs - so don't plan on hanging out up there. Take anything down that you need.
They pull mattresses downstairs. First is Mom and Dad's mattress, which they awkwardly maneuver around the railing. Who knows how they got it upstairs in the first place - or how they're getting it back upstairs once this is all over. Next is Heavy's mattress, which he insists on sitting on and riding downstairs. Dee scoffs when he sees his brother act so childish. But when it comes time to send his own mattress down to the living room...
Lets just say that it was as fun as it looked.
They spend the whole day preparing for the coldest night any of them have ever experienced. Glam whips out the old cast iron cookware to make some hot borscht in the fireplace for dinner, which they all eat by candlelight sitting on their mattresses in the living room. Heavy has a (previously thought to be) gimmicky battery powered radio, which really comes in handy when keeping track of weather forecasts.
Every available band frequency is taken over by the same government message; stay indoors, cover doors and windows, conserve body heat and energy, do not drink tap water collected after 8:00 am today, and do not light your furniture on fire in an enclosed space. It's inter-spaced with a very serious, monotone, government weather forecast that sounds like something from the Soviet Union. 85 cm has fallen already, 95 cm closer to the coast. 65 cm more forecast for tonight, and 70 cm forecast throughout the day tomorrow. Current temperature is - 34°C. High tomorrow is - 21°C.
Heavy and Dee gasp. They've never seen winter like this. Granted, nobody has, but the past few winters have been mild enough that any snow that really sticks to the ground is awe-inducing. Their parents seem less excited about the weather, sharing worried glances that Dee picks up on.
"What's wrong?" He questions. "I thought you said we would be fine."
"We will be fine." His father states, definitively. "The frozen water pipes in our house, however... Let's hope one doesn't burst."
The radio broadcast loops back to where it started, so they power it off and set it to the side. It's barely nine o'clock, but the cold seems to have pulled any energy out of the family. Vicky blows out some of the candles, leaving one each for Dee and Glam so they can finish reading before sleeping. There's a dull fire still smouldering, which should at least keep the room above freezing.
Vicky and Glam don't want to worry their kids, but they don't know how much longer they can keep up the facade of 'prepared-ness'. The sheets taped over the window should keep some of the cold out, but they really should've nailed plywood to the outside frame. They have limited firewood, limited food, and a house that could very well remain buried in snow for a month. They have 120 litres of water which should last ten days if they're careful with it.
Vicky is kicking herself for not stocking up on supplies when the storm was announced three days ago, placing her bets on it not being as bad as they called for. News outlets were warning against panic buying, and stressing that there was only a 50% chance of the storm hitting their town. Glam, on the other hand, is thinking about how he should've just evacuated like some other families did. The situation is not as bad just eighty kilometers south. They could've made it if they left immediately once the power went out last night. But he was too concerned with the possibility of being stuck in a car that he forgot about the much realer possibility of being stuck in their house.
And now they're trapped in their own wrong decisions, laying on mattresses on their living room floor with two kids and a house barricaded in with snow. Tomorrow seals their fate; according to the weather broadcast, come tomorrow night there will be 220 cm of snow trapping them here until someone comes to rescue them.