Warm Place

Two years ago, the end began. In 2036, a rapidly destabilizing climate culminated in a worldwide snowstorm that froze the entire planet. Billions are now dead due to starvation, disease, civil unrest, and the plummeting temperatures. What remains of humanity now live in small settlements or isolated makeshift villages, carving out miserable lives in this grim new reality. Some, like Chris Weston, choose to travel among the vast winter wastelands between the bastions of civilization. In the aftermath of the great collapse, Chris finds himself strangely suited for this new world.

What started out as a relatively simple encounter with two highly attractive women trying to survive in the frozen wilderness is now rapidly becoming more complicated for Chris. His relationship with Lara and Susan is growing into something much more complex and emotional, and on top of that, Jessica has just arrived on their doorstep with her daughter Hannah. She reveals that she has left her neglectful husband for good, and consequently needs a place to stay.

After nearly two months out away from Pine Lake and the women in his life, Chris is finally ready to head back. Feeling like he's conquered his demons, or at least won a decisive battle against them, and learned some crucial things about himself and his relationships, he's eager to return home and continue his life there. But it's going to be a long walk, and although he isn't too concerned about the day-to-day difficulties of traveling across the frozen wilderness, he's nervous about traveling with the four women he's picked up while out finding himself.

While Chris was out finding himself and answering some crucial questions about how he wants to live his life, tragedy and bad luck was striking Pine Lake repeatedly. After a series of accidents and a run of poor luck, culminating in a freak storm, Chris has returned home to learn that the place he intended to settle down is no longer capable of sustaining life in any long-term fashion. To make matters worse, Megan led a team off on a desperate expedition to follow a modern day treasure map to what they hope to be a cache of supplies locked away in a remote prepper's bunker.

Chris, Hannah, and Megan braved the icy horrors of the frozen wastelands. They fought for their lives, endured brutal conditions, and managed to find exactly what they were looking for: a forgotten bunker full of precious resources. Unfortunately, the bunker was just a temporary stop-gap. The slow death of starvation still looms on the horizon for the denizens of Pine Lake. If they can't figure out some way of solving the problem, they'll lose everything.

What remains of Pine Lake is a dead end, and the best hope for Chris, the women he loves, and the denizens of the settlement now lay in a town of preppers living on an island a few hundred miles to the north. All of their faith is now being put into that settlement, and the train that Chris discovered and Fay repaired. Even with a mostly functional train and a lot of luck, it will still be a long journey. Any number of dangers, environmental, animal, and human, could lay in between them and their destination.