How I Spent the Apocalypse

by Selina Rosen

  Lucy nodded silently.

  “Do you think I should feel guilty?”

  “No, I think you did what you had to do. The system was going to screw you. And I don’t feel guilty about shooting that guy today, just sort of sick inside. Maybe because I don’t feel guilty, maybe because it was so easy. I’m a journalist; I’ve seen it all. But it’s always been something happening to someone else, and I was just reporting on it I wasn’t part of it. Now… Well I’m part of the shit that’s happening to everyone. I’m not reporting on the events, I’m living them.”

  I was suddenly tired; maybe the injury, maybe just being so cold and the workout we’d done that day. I felt like I could go to sleep if I could get comfortable, which didn’t seem likely.

  I must have groaned or something because Lucy asked, “Don’t you have some pain killers in your store of ill-gotten pharmaceuticals?”

  “Well fuck, yes,” I said, feeling like an idiot. “I’ve got Lorcet. Write me a prescription and send the boys to get them.”

  “I can get them. I can read, and I know where the medicine is now.”

  When she came back with the Lorcet and a glass of water she said, “See, I’m getting better. I went all the way to the storage unit and came back without you.” She helped me sit up so that I could take the pill then helped me lie back down again.

  “And just when I need you to take care of me, too,” I mumbled, trying to get comfortable. Truth was right then I didn’t want her to get to the point where she didn’t have to be around me all the time.

  “Katy, don’t you believe in fate at all?” she asked, sounding some agitated because she knew my answer.

  “No I don’t.”

  “It’s just a coincidence that I’m here, that I went with you today…”

  “No, better than that, it makes perfect sense.” I yawned. “You’re a reporter, you’ve been reporting on me for years. I was saying the end was upon us, so of course you were going to be here. As for today… You insisted on going with me. The Burkholder brothers had made a “bunker” out of old tin and dirt in the lowest spot on their property. Even if the fucking piece of shit didn’t blow apart in the storm it would have flooded. Still they knew enough about survival to make it a few days. We drove right past their place on the way to Rudy. There isn’t another sound out there, so they would have heard that four-wheeler loud and clear, and then they laid in wait for me to come back. It wasn’t even a coincidence much less fate.”

  “Hard head,” Lucy mumbled. “Mind if I take a nap with you?”

  “Nope, but I don’t know if I can actually sleep on this side,” I said, only half joking. My good sleeping-on side was all screwed up after all.

  She crawled into bed behind me. “Maybe it will help if I’m where I usually am.”

  I yawned. I have no body chemistry for pain pills. Any of them just knock me out, and these were starting to work their magic. “Lucy, what did you mean when you said I’m the damndest queer chick you ever met?” I asked in a drug-induced haze.

  She laughed and ran her hand down my arm. “Where do you keep the chocolate?”

  “So you drugged me and crawled into bed with me just to get at my stash.” I don’t know if I told her where it was or not after that because I just sort of passed out.

  Chapter 7

  Never Go Back or After Anyone

  ***

  There will be a time when you will feel like you are safe and your mind will turn to friends and family that may not be in as good a shape as you are. Don’t go after them. Never go after anyone. If you leave your safe shelter and food supply and go out to save others, you will most likely do nothing but get yourself killed. Chances are they will already be dead, and then even if you make it back alive you will have risked your life and that of your family’s—because it will be hard for them to make it if the strongest member of their team goes off and gets themselves killed trying to save grandma, and uncle Chuck, or God help me, the family pet—for nothing.

  Those that are not prepared have been willfully ignorant, and they deserve whatever happens to them, not you and yours. So as much as it may pain you, stay put and try not to think about them. Allow them to live or die on their own merits; they are NOT your responsibility. You told them to prepare, they didn’t, that’s their problem.

  ***

  I didn’t wake up till ten o’clock the next day. My ribs hurt and so did my butt, but my back was fine, and I was able to get out of bed myself though I was glad no one was there to watch me do it because it put me into several less-than-flattering positions.

  I heard someone moving around in the kitchen so I made my way in there and found Lucy cooking. I smiled and sat down.

  “Jimmy took care of the wood stove and brought in wood and is doing the news cast right now.” He knew enough to answer questions about survival and tell them what the weather was doing because I had taught him. “Billy is taking care of the animals.”

  She handed me a cup of coffee, and even though my ribs were killing me and I still had little bits of Greg Burkholder’s brains in my hair, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a very long time. I was actually happy. I couldn’t tell you why really, but I was. Maybe it’s true that being close to death makes you feel more alive.

  “Thanks. How are you this morning?” I asked. Sometimes something like killing a guy takes a while to soak in.

  “Fine, how about you?”

  “Sore,” I said, and smiled. “Really, really sore. Anyone call back?” I asked her because I had dreamt that her boyfriend called and that he was living with us, too, and that had irritated me no end.

  “You mean the people I called?” she asked turning back to the stove.

  “Yeah.”

  “No, no one’s going to call, you know that, Katy,” she said, and she was sad. But the news just made me that much happier, which I know makes me a terrible person, but I just don’t care and the truth is the truth.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She set a plate of eggs and cheese with some slices of tomatoes in front of me.

  “You found a tomato?”

  “Two actually,” Lucy said. “In fact, the plants seem to be doing fine even with mostly artificial light. You want another pain pill?”

  “No, my God I’ll be out for a week. Maybe some ibuprofen… You know you don’t have to wait on me.”

  “I’m sponging off of you. I think I should do something. You took care of me, so it seems only right I should at least try to take care of you while you’re healing.”

  “Well you just flat-assed fixed my back,” I said. I started eating breakfast as the boys came in, no doubt smelling food. Turned out Lucy was a good cook, at least as good as me or the boys.

  “I’m not as good at reading that satellite thing as you are, Mom, but it looks like there may be a break in the weather,” Jimmy said.

  “Then we can go get Cherry and Evelyn,” Billy said excitedly.

  “First off let me take a look at the satellite. Second, I’m not going to be able to go anywhere for at least a week.”

  “We can go, Mom,” Billy said. “Jimmy and I can go. We’ll put a snow machine kit on one of the other four wheelers, take two, carry lots of guns and ammo, and wear flack jackets.”

  “You have flack jackets!” Lucy asked in disbelief.

  “Mom has damn near everything.” Jimmy laughed.

  “It’s too dangerous. I have to go…”

  “Why, because you’re bullet proof?” Lucy asked, suddenly obviously really pissed off. “You damn near got killed yesterday. And why weren’t we wearing flack jackets if you had them?”

  It was a damn good question. If I’d been wearing one I probably wouldn’t have gotten my ribs cracked at all, but the truth was I just really didn’t think they were necessary. And when the Burkholder boys were standing over me with their guns the flack jacket really wouldn’t have helped because… Well they can shoot you in the head, and that close the jackets aren’t much good anyway.<
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  “She’s right, Mom. Jimmy and I can do this. If there is a break in the weather we should go before it gets bad again,” Billy said. “We’re grown men, Mom; we can take care of ourselves.”

  “We shouldn’t go after them at all,” I said, angry because they were all ruining the good happy I’d had going on. “You never go back for people, never go after them. It’s stupid and…”

  “But we’re set up to do it, Mom. You say that, but then we’re set up to do it. You went to Rudy yesterday to take care of those people and, don’t take it personal, Mom, but they all hated you. They would probably all be dead if it wasn’t for you, and you went there yesterday to bring them supplies and work on that sick kid even though they have always treated you like the devil’s own sperm.”

  Devil’s own sperm. It warmed me to hear him use that because it was one of my own little sayings. Ah, tradition.

  In all the hubbub I’d forgotten about Karma… Which, well talking about that kid just sounds weird because of her name, doesn’t it?

  “You aren’t going. You certainly aren’t going without me. They are doing fine, so it’s a stupid risk for nothing. I’ll be well soon and then we’ll go if the weather’s good enough. We’ll bring a bunch of supplies to the group holed up at Northside High, too. Yesterday morning I picked up a distress call on the short-wave radio. A cop is holed up there with about sixty people. He said they’d been able to get a couple of wood heaters going and that there was quite a bit of food in the cafeteria but they could use a little more and they are in bad need of light. But we aren’t going till it’s clear and then Billy, you and I will go and your brother will stay here with Lucy.”

  “Oh I’m going,” both Jimmy and Lucy said.

  “Yes, that’s smart. Let’s risk everyone’s life and shut down all the good we’re doing here to go and get these girls. Billy and I will go. You two will stay here and we’ll go when there is a break in the weather and I can go. Now, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I was in a good mood and you’re all ruining it.”

  There was silence around the table and I ate my breakfast in peace and then went to check and see if there was any news of my patient. There was. Roy thanked me said everyone was in better spirits than they had been since the tornado hit and that Karma was already much improved and couldn’t quit talking about Christmas. He sent me a list of the toys the kids wanted and as luck would have it I had nearly all of them. What I didn’t have we could substitute or build.

  Lucy walked in the office. “Well?” she asked.

  “Roy says Karma is on her way to recovery.”

  Lucy sighed with relief. “Good. What about the weather?”

  “Well it looks like Jimmy is right. There is going to be a break in the weather, but it won’t last more than twenty-four hours and then there is another storm.” I pointed to it on the screen. “A big, bad-assed one.”

  “I know why you don’t want them to go,” Lucy said. “But they are both grown men and…”

  “They aren’t going, Lucy.”

  “But what if this is the only window, the only break for… Well what if it’s months till there is another one?”

  “Then they’ll all just have to survive by the skin of their own teeth, that’s what. I’m prepared, I shouldn’t have to risk my life or my sons’ lives for them, and maybe the fact that I did almost get killed yesterday on my mission of mercy is making me realize that there isn’t much out there worth leaving here for.”

  “But you’d go,” Lucy said in an accusatory fashion. “You’d go if your ribs weren’t absolutely killing you.”

  “Let me see if you can understand this, Lucy. I’ll risk my life before I’d risk my sons’—or yours for that matter.”

  “I know that, I just don’t understand why you think you’re expendable.”

  “I don’t.”

  “But you act like you do, Katy,” Lucy said.

  Did I? I didn’t think that I did. It was just that I couldn’t stand to lose anyone else that I loved, and if I did something and got killed… Well then I wouldn’t have to worry about any of them anymore would I? My sons could do all the stupid shit they wanted after I was dead.

  I spent most of the day giving weather reports. At least for a change I had some good news. It would be short-lived, and it would only be from eastern Oklahoma through Arkansas and parts of Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi, but it just might be enough time for people to get out and get some more supplies, reinforce their shelters, make things a little more secure, and get more wood. I was telling them to make sure things were safe and if they were then now was the time to check out their area and try to find more supplies and more water sources. I kept checking the satellite images and just kept updating the weather. Unfortunately for anyone from Illinois east, our “warm” front was pushing an even colder front on top of them.

  By five o’clock that afternoon I was spent and my ribs were killing me. Lucy had been helping me all day, and I’d been teaching her how to use and read all the equipment. She seemed to be most in her element in the office. I even let her do one of the broadcasts, thinking people would be getting tired of listening to me by now.

  I kept starting to get up or sit down myself, but I really couldn’t, and Lucy would run over and help me without being asked.

  Seriously, I was really enjoying the attention.

  The boys made dinner and then we all sat around and watched a movie. I sat in my chair, reared back, and found I was actually comfortable. At one point Lucy had left, gone to my bedroom and come back with the arnica oil. She rubbed it into my ribs while the boys made teasing noises.

  I ignored them.

  So did Lucy.

  When the movie was over I just wanted to go to sleep, but was more than ready to wash the brains and blood out of my hair.

  I wasn’t sure about taking my thermal underwear off, though, so I kept putting it off till I couldn’t stand it any longer. Then I steeled myself and put my legs down. It hurt a lot, but I got up, went to the bathroom, and started to get undressed. Outside the bathroom door Lucy asked, “Do you need help?”

  Yes, yes I fucking did. Bending over was excruciating, but I didn’t want Lucy to see me naked.

  “No I’ve got it thanks, could you bring me some pajamas?” Because of course I had forgotten those.

  “Sure.”

  I got in the shower and broke my own rule about the shower. It wasn’t a problem. The waterfall was running, which meant the cisterns were all full to running over with snow melt. Yeah, against the domes even in this cold the snow was melting and running into the cisterns, which was just one of the reasons I checked it for radioactivity.

  I let the water run, the hot water feeling good on my battered body, because now I could see dozens of bruises all over my frame, not just the huge ones on my ribs and my ass. I washed Greg’s DNA out of my hair, glad that I kept it short because it meant it would dry fast. I finally turned the water off and got out then I just looked at the towel. I dreaded trying to dry myself.

  “Do you need help?” Lucy asked again from outside the door.

  Yes, of course I did, but in my mind my ever-so-slight chance of getting Lucy into the sack was never going to happen if she saw my fat, sagging, forty-five-year-old body naked in good light.

  I must have been quiet too long. “Do you need help, hard head?”

  Undressing had just about killed me. Drying myself off and putting on more clothes… I just didn’t want to even think about it.

  “Jimmy or Billy could…”

  “Fuck, Katy, you don’t have anything I don’t have.”

  “Oh yes I fucking do. Cellulite and flab, and my boobs are on my knees.”

  “You’re fucking ridiculous.” And then she just walked in.

  I tried to grab the towel and cover myself, but moving too fast sent a pain through me that caused me to jerk my hand back, which wasn’t much better.

  Lucy laughed, grabbed the towel, and just started drying
me off. I was glad I didn’t have a dick because if I did I no doubt would have gotten a boner.

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling my face was about as red as it could get without blood pouring from every pore.

  “Maybe we should wrap those ribs?” she asked, helping me put my pajamas on.

  “Maybe.” Truth is there have always been two schools of thought on wrapping cracked ribs. On the one hand, wrapping them might make them feel better. On the other hand, when you breathe your ribs move, and pushing against the wrappings could actually make them worse. “Not right now.”

  “Hey, Mom, I made some hot chocolate. You want some?” Billy asked from outside the door.

  “Yeah sure,” I said, thinking it would help me sleep. I sure as hell wasn’t taking another Lorcet if I could help it. I didn’t like being that out of it and had never understood why anyone would want to be.

  “Me, too,” Lucy said. She looked at me and smiled. “You know… You actually have a pretty good body.”

  I smiled back, embarrassed, but said, “I bet you say that to all the butch dykes you have to spend the apocalypse with.”

  She left and I combed my hair. Even that hurt.

  The minute I finished that hot chocolate I was done in, so I brushed my teeth and headed to bed. Lucy wasn’t far behind me, and I hardly remembered her coming in.

  When I woke up at ten o’clock the next morning with Lucy still beside me I knew what the little fuckers had done. They had doped us. I shook Lucy awake.

  “What, what!” she hollered.

  “Help me up. Those little fuckers,” I said as an explanation.

  I wasn’t wrong. The boys were gone, and I found a note on the kitchen table.

  Mom,

  I know you’re going to be pissed as hell, but we had to go. There may not be another chance. I loaded up with supplies—and here there was a list of all they had taken, and not too surprisingly he had taken everything I would have. We are armed and armored and we will be careful.