How I Spent the Apocalypse

by Selina Rosen

  “Is it wet in there?” I asked, quickly making a mental note of how far they were from the river and deciding they were safe.

  “Not really. House was on a cement slab.”

  “Then get comfortable. There is another storm right behind this one, and it’s full of tornados, too. In the morning if the storms are gone saw your way out. Remember not to use the chainsaw if it’s going to take you more than a few seconds to get out because you’ll wind up with carbon monoxide poisoning. If you can find your four wheelers, pack what you can and get your butts home because you are only going to have a very small window of time before the next storm front hits. If you have to, you hike out, you hear me?”

  “Will do, Mama.”

  “Be careful. I already broke one of my rules. Don’t make me break another by making me come after you.”

  I said good night to my sons and then closed the phone. I needed a drink. I got up to go to the fridge and get a beer and then I’d get back on my blog and start answering some of the thousands of questions that would be coming in. I’d try to pick the ones that were asked most, the ones that seemed most urgent, but the truth was I couldn’t answer them all, there was just no way. There would be people on the edge needing an answer that I could have provided that would be the difference between life and death, and I’d miss them, and I just couldn’t worry about it. I was all wireless, and I had the radio station and the ham station up, so I’d do all I could, hope that at least some of the people I was answering were able to get the answers they needed some way, and just work till I dropped.

  “You have kids?” Lucy asked.

  “Two boys.”

  “Why aren’t they here?”

  She might as well have spit in my face her question made me that mad. “Because they’re grown men now who think they know every God-damned thing and they don’t listen to me because people like you have gone out of your way to make them believe that I’m fucking out of my tiny little mind.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a mere whisper. I just ignored her apology, got my beer and went in to try to help “my people,” not really giving any thought to what I was going to do about Lucy. She would be a waste of food and time, and I just knew she was going to be nothing but trouble. In short I was sure that girl was going to ruin the apocalypse for me.

  A thunderclap sounded loud enough to make me jump. I ignored that, too, and just started answering questions.

  Ted in Illinois said there was already a foot of snow on the ground. But the ice had come first—two inches of it—and it had broken every tree and power pole as far as he could see. He had plenty of food and had just finished filling everything that would hold it with water. He had a fireplace, but he wasn’t sure he had enough wood, and his house was already getting cold. They were projecting wind chills as low as twenty below over night.

  His question was the same as many of the ones I was getting from the northern states. They were used to long, cold winters, but not prepared to be off the grid at all and certainly not during record cold temperatures. And I knew this winter was going to be colder and longer than anything even they were used to.

  I went right to the radio and computer. I told them everything that I knew was going on. Then I read Ted’s question out loud and told them, “Use utilities to heat and light your home till they all go out. Only then get into your wood supply. It may be that some people will keep services all through the apocalypse. Other places it could last for days. If you have a wood stove or fireplace, pick that room. Otherwise pick the smallest room in the house with the least windows. Only heat this room. The more people that do this the longer the power will last. Fill any cracks around the windows with plastic wrap or aluminum foil then hang several layers of blankets or stack mattresses or furniture over any windows in the room. This will help you insulate that room. Hang a blanket over the door you intend to use to come and go. Bring all your food blankets and clothing into this room. Bring any of your firewood into the house and put it in an adjoining room. When the utilities give out, then and only then, start burning your wood. Ration it like you do your food and water. The idea is to make the space habitable while wearing several layers of clothes, not cozy enough for shorts and a tank top.

  For those of you without any combustible-type heating stove, if you have a tent pitch it in the middle of the room and cover it with blankets, clothes, anything that will insulate. If you have a Coleman stove or a lamp and fuel, use it only sparingly as you could get carbon monoxide poisoning. Candles are great. They will warm something as small as a tent more than you think and don’t have the problems of the gas-burning camping appliances, but you will need that type of appliance to cook on, so if you don’t have one and a supply of fuel get it now. You will basically be treating the room like the outdoors and the tent like home…

  I don’t know how many more I had answered when she walked into the room.

  “This place is a little claustrophobic.”

  It’s true. The house is small. My office is the largest room in the house, and it’s only sixteen by sixteen. Less space means less to heat and cool—not that it took much to heat and cool anyway because of its construction—it also took less material to build it smaller.

  “I didn’t build it for you,” I said, and just kept working.

  “CNN is reporting tornados in Georgia, ice storms in Kansas and Missouri, and a tidal wave off the coast of Washington extending as far south as Baja.”

  “Well at least that will put those fires out,” I mumbled and continued writing.

  “It’s not funny; it’s horrible. Thousands are dying and…”

  “None of those people are me. Look, chick, hundreds of thousands died yesterday in India and Pakistan, did you cry for them?” Her silence told me she hadn’t. “You know why you didn’t cry for them?” I didn’t even give her time to answer. “Because it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t anyone you knew. You weren’t there, and you didn’t see it, and part of you said they deserved it because they had done it to themselves. Well this—all of this—was caused by that action, but we also did it to ourselves. We have been pushing everything out of balance. We are parasites, and there are too many of us. We are killing our host, and now it’s shaking like crazy to get rid of us. The only ones that are going to make it, the only ones that deserve to make it, are the ones who are going to hang on tight for dear life. Now I don’t have time to talk. You can condemn me later, but right now I’m trying to save who I can.”

  She didn’t go away, but she was quiet, just standing there, which of course bugged the living shit out of me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I lost my cell phone. Can I use yours?”

  “Key-rist!” I pulled it out of my pocket and threw it at her. I was surprised some when she caught it. “Go someplace else to call. I’m trying to work.”

  She left the room, but I could see her hovering just outside the door, which was annoying to say the least. Now the truth is I don’t really like to be alone. I’ve spent a lot of my life that way since the boys left home because crazy people—even famous crazy people—don’t generally have many friends. I had a few, but I’d spent most of my time alone working. I’d never had any trouble at all picking women up, but keeping them was another matter altogether. They were all over in love with me till they realized how crazy I really was, then it was, “Bye! See ya.” It was a shame, really, because I’m not really bad looking, I have lots of money, I’ve been told I’m a really good lover, and I was their best chance for making it through the apocalypse. Of course they’d all thought that the fact that I believed we were headed for doom and was preparing for it was the craziest thing I did. So, there you go.

  All except Cindy. she’d known I was crazy, and really wasn’t all over the whole apocalypse thing, but she loved me and stayed with me no matter how much grief her family and friends—or even I—gave her. She saw my obsession with surviving a coming apocalypse the way most women see their husband’s fishing, hunti
ng or sports-watching habit. You know, irritating, but if that’s the worst thing he does…

  Of course she didn’t listen to me any better than those boys of ours did. About ten years before the apocalypse she was driving home from work. It was raining hard and we’d had a bunch of flash flooding. How many times had I told her, how many times had I warned everyone else? Hunker down till the storm or disaster passes; don’t try to go anywhere. But Cindy wanted to come home, and she drove through what she thought was just a few inches of water. It washed her right off the bridge and into the swollen creek. They said she drowned quickly. At the funeral people even told me that drowning was a painless way to go. I’m sure that’s mostly shit, and that they think that because they’ve never drowned.

  To this day I have nightmares seeing the tow truck winch her car out of the creek, seeing her dead, lifeless body floating inside and sinking lower as the water ran out of the car till she was out of sight.

  My boys think that’s what pushed me over the edge. They think I wasn’t really crazy till their mother died, but I was just as crazy just not as driven. And maybe I started the whole podcasting thing because I needed something to fill my suddenly empty life. Does the reason why I did it really matter now?

  Love will make you crazy, and losing someone who loves you unconditionally… Well, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but I had her boys to raise by myself and nightmares of the destruction of the world, so I just threw myself into my work. Actually that was when I went to working only part time because I got two-hundred-thousand dollars in life insurance from Cindy, and I knew the apocalypse was right around the corner, so I started working hard on the new house. I’ll admit it now; part of me wanted the new house because I couldn’t stand being in the house I’d shared with her. It was too weird not seeing her there and even weirder when I did, because she was dead and that just ain’t right.

  Anyway, like I said, I don’t really like to be alone. But right then I certainly didn’t want that girl around, so I wasn’t happy when she walked back in and handed me my cell phone saying, “The head of CNN wants to talk to you.”

  “What?” I say into the phone. I’m not impressed by money or power or freaking titles—never have been. Sure to hell wasn’t after the shit hit the fan. Show me that you can make something useful from old newspapers, sticks, and duct tape, and then I’ll be impressed.

  “Lucy tells me you have enough equipment there to send us feed.” I looked around me at all the equipment. I knew I did. Hell, all I had to do was send him a live video blog from my computer.

  “Yeah.”

  “You hook us up, and I’ll put you on the air live. I don’t care what you say, and I won’t stop you.” I’m thinking he’d just become a true believer.

  ***

  I spent the next six hours telling anyone who could watch or listen—because I had the radio transmitter going, too—how best to survive any and all the disaster scenarios I could think of. I was completely drained by the time our link with CNN just died. When we ran in the living room and turned on the TV, NBC was reporting that a line of massive tornados had ripped the CNN building and most of Atlanta to pieces.

  Lucy had been standing, helping me work the equipment, too keyed up to sit the whole time we’d been transmitting. Now she flopped onto the couch next to me and just stared at the TV as if someone had punched her in the gut, and she just couldn’t wrap her head around the why of it.

  I got up silently and went to put some wood in the stove and shut it down for the night. It’s a nice one—airtight with a catalytic converter and a fan that blows the heat through pipes in the front. I’d only ever really had to fire it at night until the apocalypse because… Well I’ll explain that later.

  “Thank you,” Lucy said, suddenly standing right behind me.

  “For saving your life or making you the most famous reporter on earth?”

  “That’s not really going to be worth much now, is it?” she said, an angry note to her voice that I figured I deserved.

  “Sorry, I’m tired and I have a bad headache. I’m going to pop a couple of ibuprofen, get a shower, and go to bed.”

  She looked panicked then. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Well you can bunk with me if you like, but I’m going to bed.”

  “Alright. Can I get a shower?”

  “Yes, but its water on, water off, soap up, rinse, and get out.”

  She made a face, but nodded, so I think maybe she was starting to realize what sort of world it was going to be. Of course being the gentlewoman I am, I got my shower first. I had just finished putting on my pajamas in the bathroom, and already I was seeing what a huge imposition she was because normally—even if my boys were there—I would have just walked naked to the bedroom and gotten into my night clothes there. When I stepped out of the bathroom she was waiting there, which was flat-assed annoying.

  “I… I have no clothes except what I’m wearing,” she said.

  I laughed then, momentarily getting my sense of humor back. “Well, dear, this may be the worst part of the apocalypse for you. You’re going to have to wear my clothes.” The look on her face said she didn’t think that was going to work. I’m six feet tall, and she was maybe five-five tops, I weighed one-hundred-eighty pounds, she might have weighed one-twenty soaking wet.

  I got her some boxer shorts and a T-shirt and she looked at me like I was from Mars. I shrugged, handed them to her and went to bed. It had been a long, hard day, and I no sooner lay down than I was asleep. I woke up because the cell phone was ringing. To tell the truth, I was sort of surprised it was still working. I guessed some towers must still be up. I answered it.

  “Hello, Billy.”

  “How’d ya know it was me, Mom?”

  “No one else calls me, and certainly not during the Apocalypse.”

  “We got out of the basement no problem. But listen, Mom. Both of the four-wheelers were trashed so we took parts off one of them and got the other one running, but both of us are going to have to ride it and there’s no room for anything but us and our guns.”

  “You see any of your neighbors?”

  “The Simpsons are out milling around. There’s nothing left of their house, though, except the closet they were hiding in…”

  “Tell them to get your wood stove if they can find it and set it up in your basement. Should be stuff that will work for stove pipes all around there. Tell them to stack as many shingles—those should be everywhere—on the cement slab as they can. Let them have your survival kit and all your supplies. I have plenty for us all here.” And that was when I remembered that I had all sorts of clothes for Jimmy, and he was a lot closer to Lucy’s size than I was. It wasn’t like me to forget things. I guess the end of the world had me a little off my game. “Give them everything.”

  “Herbert’s saying they’re going to try to walk to Mountainburg, and…”

  “Mountainburg got hit just as bad, and they’ll never make it. You offer him what you’ve got and my advice and then get the hell out of there. Get home and sooner is better.”

  I gave him a few more instructions then hung up, looked at the clock, saw it was nine and moaned. I’d gotten all of four hours sleep, but I still had to get up because I had too much to do to just sleep all day. There would be plenty of time to sleep when the next storm rolled in. People didn’t know it yet, but this one had just been the warning.

  I got out of bed and realized that I hadn’t been alone. Lucy was in my bed and still sound asleep. I had been kidding when I’d said she could bunk with me. I certainly never thought Miss Prissy Pants would do it, but what the hell? I’d only slept on the one side of the bed since I started living with Cindy anyway.

  I dressed, got my milk bucket and headed for the barn.

  The goats were restless and hard to milk. Normally I just went to the milk room, they got in line, came in one at a time, let me milk them, and left. Even the rabbits seemed more skittish than normal, and the chickens and guineas star
ted screaming as soon as I stepped into the barn. Now I could have said they knew something was going on, but it was probably closer to the truth to say that they weren’t used to being locked in the barn. The door was usually open, and they could come and go as they pleased. Being locked in the barn was different for them, and you know what? Probably that big storm the night before had spooked them because I didn’t get as much milk as I normally did, either, now that I think about it. There was light coming in the skylights, but it was overcast outside and there wasn’t enough light, so I turned on the low-wattage, compact fluorescents that mimicked sunlight that were the only bulbs I used. I had just finished feeding the animals when I heard a noise behind me and turned to see Lucy standing there in a pair of my boxers, a knot tied in the side to keep them from falling down, and one of my T-shirts knotted up to keep it up. Her hair, which had no doubt had too much spray in it the night before, was standing up all over her head, and her make up was smeared all over her face. She looked a sight but I didn’t laugh. Took everything I had, but I didn’t.

  “I heard the most ungodly noise,” she said, rubbing her eyes and only making the mascara thing worse. I’m guessing that trying to shower my way and finding no cold cream—since I didn’t own any—she hadn’t even tried to get the makeup off.

  “Guineas,” I said pointing.

  She just nodded silently. She was shivering with cold—and it was cold—which wasn’t usual for the barn and certainly not the greenhouse. That’s right, the corridor that leads from the house to the barn is filled with a stream and a greenhouse, and this is why I normally didn’t have to light that stove until night. See, as long as the sun was shining that greenhouse and stream heated the entire house. Water is a perfect heat sink—it grabs the heat, hangs onto it, and then lets it go slowly. Of course the same was true of the concrete floor and the walls until they met the glass.

  Now how did a greenhouse stand up to a tornado and giant hail? Well about eight years ago one of my listeners who knew I loved to recycle and knew that I was specifically looking for “aquarium” glass called and told me they were redoing a part of the aquarium he worked in and that they were getting rid of all the old “glass.” I bought it for a fraction of what it costs new and hired an eighteen wheeler to move it here for me.