Free Snow & Ash: Endless Winter by Theresa Shaver Page B

shipping containers to the left and to the right was an empty gardening center. I counted six raised rows of empty beds filled with soil with hanging grates above them that held a lot of empty pots waiting to be filled. Past those on the far right wall were two more closed doors that were imbedded into the rock wall. The size of this place was beyond anything I had imagined when my parents had talked about Dad’s man cave. The distinctive sound of a cow came again and I picked up my pace further into the cave.
    Once I had passed the shipping containers and garden area I again came to stop at the sight of the weirdest thing. A knee high wooden fence cut all the way across the cavern and on the other side of it was a four foot across stream. I tracked it across the room and saw a small pond cut into the rock floor. Looking closer at the water I saw a flash of silver as fish shot by. A silly grin split my face. Not only did Dad make a crazy huge man cave but he put in his own fishing pond. There was a little railed bridge to cross over it so I crossed and went deeper into the back.
    To the right were more wooden fences but larger and made into two animal pens. One of them had a chicken coop and my eyes popped out at the six hens and one ugly rooster that were scattered around it pecking at the hay covered floor. The other pen had a real honest to goodness cow in it. It was huge and black and white and it stared back at me over the rail as it chewed hay. I stared back in amazement. Where on earth had these animals come from and more importantly, was I going to have to clean up after them?!
    The scream of an electric saw had me turning to the left and there was Dad. My eyes roamed over the walls and tables around him that had all the work shop tools anyone could ever need. I had to shake my head a little in disbelief, Mom was always going on about how many tools Dad had in the garage but this was at least double that.
    I wandered over towards him and saw that he was in the middle of a building project. From what I could see it looked like he was building a baby cradle. I just stood there watching him and rubbing the baby’s soft head while he worked. His face was haggard and strained and he looked like an older tired version of my dad. Again, sorrow at the loss of Mom rushed through me. Tears burned my eyes as I tried to deal with how unfair this change in our lives was.
    Without looking up at me, Dad spoke.
    “Can’t have the boy sleeping in a drawer, you’ll be surprised at how fast he’ll grow out of it.”
    I glanced down at the tiny lump against my chest for a second before clearing my throat.
    “Um Dad? How did you do all of this? I mean all this stuff, the lights and the rooms and the containers, where did it all come from?”
    It took him a few seconds before he answered me as he continued to sand the board of wood he was working on. He finally dropped the sand paper and looked up.
    “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do all of it. I just did the finishing work, our living area and the animal pens and gardens. Uncle Bill had the majority of all this done before I even knew about it.”
    I shook my head, “He just gave all this to us?” I asked in disbelief.
    Dad ran a hand through his messy hair making it even messier while looking around the cavern.
    “Not exactly, it’s complicated.” He paused and frowned before shaking his head. “I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore but what he did was very illegal. After I got back from my last deployment your Uncle and I spent a weekend camping out up in these mountains. We talked a lot about the future and the way the world was headed. I told him about my plans to find a piece of land up here that I could buy and set up as a fallback position in case the sh… uh poop hit the fan. We talked plans and designs and supplies. It was sort of fun to lay it all out. After that I got busy and spent the next four years building up the construction company. There just never