by Selina Rosen
I took them off. Yeah, no doubt about it, I was being used.
***
Several of the people I’d kept in touch with over the last few weeks couldn’t be reached, and here’s the thing—the ones with radios that could actually still talk to me were the ones that were set up pretty well. I knew there were thousands of people who could hear me that couldn’t get in touch with me. If the ones who were set up were going, what hope did that leave for the others?
In Rudy they were having trouble keeping it warm enough, but they were doing it. I had given both Roy and Matt a ham radio, and Matt reported they were doing alright but burning a lot of wood and sort of wondering if with even as much as they had it was going to be enough.
“The cattle and all those other critters are all in one corner of the small barn so even they know it’s easier for more bodies to heat less space,” he told me. “I closed the door. Figured they weren’t going out in this shit anyway and might as well keep it as warm in there as I can. Like I said I got plenty of hay and I’ll just keep throwing it on top of their shit. Should be clean enough and a hell of a lot better than freezing.”
In Fort Smith at Northside High school they weren’t doing so well. It had gotten so cold there had been ice in their water jugs only a few feet from where they were sleeping. The real problem was they were running out of wood. They’d burned every desk, shelf, and chair they could find and they had started tearing rooms apart to burn the wood. They had already burned most of the gym floor, all the bleachers, and every single plastic thing they could find. They had started burning books and whatever else they could find for fuel, but they had very little actual wood left. Books will burn, but they won’t put off much heat doing it. They were reduced to melting snow for water, and I can tell you right now that doing that brings a big bunch of the cold in with you. They were running the electric heater off the generator, but the two of them together weren’t enough.
See, like I told you already, they made their wood stove in their shop and it was adequate but not too efficient. Even with a damper half their heat was likely as not going right up their chimney. And it was just that cold.
I told them to quit stuffing so many books in their stove at one time. All they were doing was smothering their fire. A smoldering fire doesn’t produce much real heat. I looked on my maps and saw that the new Wal-Mart the boys said was mostly intact was only a few blocks away from them. I instructed them to make snowshoes by tying metal tennis rackets from the gym room to their feet, to cover themselves in sunscreen or lotion if they had it—’cause it holds in your body’s heat. I more ordered than told them to hike to the Wal-Mart, make sleds from the hoods of cars they would doubtlessly find there, and then look for those fireplace logs in bags, charcoal briquettes, wooden furniture—anything that would burn.
They told me the Wal-Mart had been hit by the tornado. I wanted to just let them die in that moment because I decided they were too stupid to live. I explained that hit or not it was mostly standing and with a little effort they would find these burnable items. Three of them bundled up and went out into the sub-zero weather, understanding that they didn’t have a choice and that they might not make it back alive. They came back with three car hoods loaded with fireplace logs and charcoal briquettes. They even had some lighter fluid. They told the others there was tons of it and where it was. They had built a fire there at the site and had warmed up good before trekking back out into the cold.
Yes charcoal briquettes emit carbon monoxide and you’re never supposed to use them indoors. Here’s the thing—it’s a wood stove, a closed system, and the pollutants are going up the pipe. If not you’re mostly screwed any way because I’m sure you’ve all heard of smoke inhalation. Also if the choices were dying of carbon monoxide poisoning and freezing to death I’d pick poisoning every time.
They got their wood stove roaring again, and then they took turns going in groups. They made a total of six trips that day and they didn’t stop till they had everything burnable they could find, a whole car hood load of those memory foam mattresses, pillows and blankets—till then they’d been sleeping on wrestling mats and covering themselves with clothes and coats they’d found in the lockers. While there they grabbed some rifles and ammo and killed the half dozen dogs that tried to attack them when they raided the meat department. Everything was frozen completely solid, so they knew it would be good and they were all hungry for some protein that wasn’t canned since they had eaten most of the frozen meat out of the cafeteria in the first couple of weeks. The effort cost one of the teacher’s two fingers—frost bite—but proved to me that they did deserve to live after all.
The storm was horrible It stretched across most of the US and Canada all the way into Mexico. Europe and what was left of the Middle East and Africa looked bad, too. Australia looked mostly alright. Lucky Aussies.
I got a call from a guy I’d been talking to on the radios for years. He was in Arizona, an Indian living in a Hogan with his wife, mother, three sisters and a bunch of kids. “We are out of wood, we are out of any fuel at all and it is getting colder. We are huddling together for warmth but it isn’t enough. My mother died last night and my baby is sick, too cold.”
“I’m so sorry, Solomon. Is there nothing you can burn?”
“Only our clothes and we are wearing all of those, we need them.”
So many people in such a small, well-insulated space, and they were still all freezing. It showed just how cold it actually was.
“Can you go out and cut wood?”
“The snow is five foot deep here.”
“Do you have an out-building close by?”
“Yes, a shed it is…” He seemed to understand where I was going. “I can take my chain saw and cut it up, burn it.”
“The storm will move on in two days. It will still be cold and the snow will still be deep, but you may be able to get out and cut wood then. For now dismantle the shed.”
But for everyone I saved that day another one disappeared and the radio got quieter as the day progressed. The people who had bunkers and who were damn near as prepared for it as I was were doing fine, but people like Solomon who had just done the best they could to prepare with limited funds were all struggling. I tried not to think about it, but it was hard. Another on-line friend, Bob who lived in Michigan, radioed to tell me that he had plenty of fuel but he was still freezing. He had lived with his aged father and his father had died a week ago.
See cold and heat will kill off the weak quick. You have to be hearty to withstand constant harsh elements. It was why Evelyn was barely alive and Cherry was healthy, because Cherry had been in good shape going into it and Evelyn hadn’t.
“I just don’t care any more, Katy,” Bob had said. “I’m tired of fighting it. Nothing is going to be left when this is over, nothing and… it’s just so cold and I’m alone and… I’ve just got my dad stuffed in his bedroom, which we haven’t heated in weeks and he’s frozen stiff as a board and I’m alone. Alone and… No body can be alive out there and what’s the point? I haven’t seen one more chimney belching smoke in two weeks. No lights out there at night. Nothing, they’re all dead. They have to be.”
“Just stay next to the stove, Bob. It will pass; it’s just going to take time. When it’s over you can leave there, come here, there are people here.”
He’d laughed then. “Katy… You don’t understand how cold it is here. I’ve done everything you said. I’ve closed off all the other rooms. I’ve hung blankets—not just over all the windows and doors and stacked furniture over them—but I’ve done it over all the walls, too. I’ve got lots of wood and plenty of food and water and it still got so cold in here my father died. He died, and he wasn’t even sick. When I stand next to the stove I only get warm on the side facing it. Last night I slept two feet from the stove under six blankets in all my clothes and I was so cold I shook all night. I’m tired of being cold, tired of being alone. I’m just tired.” There was a gunshot and then silence. I shut the radio off
and got to my feet. Lucy had gone to the bathroom a few minutes before and I was glad she wasn’t there because I just suddenly needed to get way away from everyone. Suddenly it seemed to me that there were people everywhere, and of course it didn’t help that I wasn’t wrong.
The boys had taken care of the animals that morning because my ribs still stung and I figured I might as well milk it for all it was worth. They owed me for the whole drugging me thing.
I just wanted to be alone with the animals, not be around people or on the radio. I just wanted to not have to think for a minute. I was tired of solving problems, tired of everyone’s problems becoming mine, tired of feeling like I was responsible for everyone. Like Bob I was just tired.
Of course I wasn’t in the barn five minutes, hadn’t even finished sweeping all the goat shit into the methane tank when there was Lucy. “You alright?” she asked quietly. This was the point in time that Lucy first got to see me act really crazy because I just didn’t want to have to explain anything and I didn’t like that she seemed to have figured out that my suddenly leaving the office and going to the barn meant that something was wrong. My brain was over loading and I needed to just not have to deal with… Well anyone or anything for at least ten minutes.
“Not really.” I snapped back and then I started sweeping really hard, slinging goat shit all the way to the other side of the barn, which wasn’t helpful at all but was something I suddenly wanted to be doing.
“What happened?” Lucy asked. She wasn’t intimidated at all by my screaming or shit slinging, nope she just moved a little to the left out of range.
“Leave me the fuck alone!” I threw the broom down, turned quickly and headed into the hall that lead to the shop, slamming the door behind me. Damn it was cold in that hall. Of course not even that stopped Lucy who followed me into the cold-assed hall and shut the door. “God-dammit! Don’t you get it? When I storm off into this cold-assed hallway I want to be alone!”
“Tell me what’s wrong,” she demanded, but didn’t sound angry or hurt just maybe a little concerned.
I turned around, got two inches from her face and yelled as loud as I could, “What?! Are you still fucking reporting?”
She didn’t back down just said, “No I’m not fucking reporting. I’m worried about you because when you went stomping out of the house you were obviously upset.”
“If I wanted to talk about it, don’t you think I would have done that instead of trying to be alone?”
She just looked at me then and she wasn’t even a little bit afraid of me and she wasn’t angry. It was infuriating and so was what she said next. “It’s awful cold out here.” Alright I don’t know why that was so infuriating, it just was. Maybe because I had been in the barn where it was warm till she showed up, invaded my space, and forced me into that cold-ass hallway. Maybe because Bob had just killed himself because he couldn’t get away from this cold and I could just by walking back in the barn.
“Why don’t you state the fucking obvious? It’s cold everywhere, Lucy.” I started kicking at the pile of fire wood that lined the walls of the hall then, intermittently jumping up and down slinging my arms around and making noises that weren’t really words. Somewhere in the middle of all that I managed to say, “Stupid people! Stupid people and all their stupid shit and now they’re all dying. Even the ones that made it are dying in the hundreds now because it’s just too fucking cold for humans and… It was easier to just be crazy Katy the nut job who said all the stupid shit about doomsday but never had to really deal with… Well what I said was coming actually being here.”
“It’s not my fault! I didn’t do it! I didn’t do any of it. They did it; they did it to themselves. I didn’t do it and I’m just… I’m just so fucking tired of having everyone expecting me to be able to fix it all. It took centuries to make this mess. I can’t fix it; no one can fix it now. It’s way too late for someone to come along wave a magic wand or let go some CO2 eating fungus and save us all. I don’t have a big bottle of Nukes-away just lying around. Or a spray can of snow be gone in the back of my truck. It just has to run its course. If anything is left when it’s over it will be a miracle. It’s not my fault it’s cold, it’s not, and old people die in the cold, it happens and…” I just stopped screaming and kicking the wood pile and all the other stupid shit I was doing and I looked at Lucy. She was just sort of standing there, listening. She still looked concerned but still not angry or scared. I was having an all-out, screaming, crazy-assed fit, and she wasn’t judging me or cringing in fear.
Cindy… Hell, every other woman I’d ever been with always did one of two things when I was pissed off. Either they got mad and started screaming back at me—which by the way is a big mistake—or they started crying and ran off. Somehow they always managed to make it about them, but Lucy—who I basically thought was the most self-centered woman I’d ever been with just wasn’t.
“I’m having a conniption fit.” I told her in case she hadn’t actually noticed.
“Yeah, surprisingly I was aware of that,” she said with a shrug. “It’s alright, baby.”
“Aren’t you even a little upset?!”
“Why would I be? I get it completely. I cry when I think about it and you throw a fit. It isn’t all that different. You’ve been there for me. You’re absolutely right. The world is all fucked up and everyone is expecting way too much of you, and there is only so much you can do and most people think they’re carrying the weight of the whole world on their shoulders but they aren’t and you really are.” She smiled then. “It isn’t like you’re really mad at me… You aren’t are you?”
I thought about it for a minute. It annoyed me that she had followed me out there, but no I wasn’t really mad at her and I told her so.
“Then wouldn’t you rather say what’s bothering you to me than to no one? I mean come on we’re in this together aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” I said and I actually felt better.
“Then can you tell me what triggered this? I mean you have every right to be upset, but just what happened?”
I told her what had happened with Bob.
“It’s not your fault Kay, not even close. You are doing everything you can possibly do. You can’t save everyone, so quit kicking yourself. It’s cold in here.” She took my hand and we walked back into the barn.
Billy was standing there with that look on his face. The one he got whenever I was throwing a fit. The one that said he didn’t know whether to shit or go blind, hose me down or run and hide. “You OK mom?” he asked carefully, and you could almost see him cringe getting ready for me to come undone.
“Yeah I’m fine,” I said, and I was. I didn’t know how she did it, but she had completely defused me. Better than that I didn’t feel like a big, open wound with no peroxide in sight. No one in my life had ever done that for me. No one had ever let me get my mad on and sided with me against the injustice of the world. I felt ten feet tall and bullet proof.
I slugged my son in the face as hard as I could. He whirled backwards clutching his jaw “Jesus Christ, Mom!”
“And now I feel even better.”
“What the hell?” Lucy shrieked.
I pointed right at Billy’s nose. “Don’t you ever, ever, drug me again.”
Chapter 11
The Importance of Entertainment
***
It will seem trivial as the world falls apart around you, but it’s very important to find some way to entertain yourself and those you are with. Close, confined spaces and hardship have a way of stressing out even the most even-tempered person and eating away at your will to live.
Put a pack of cards, some books, board games, sketch pad and pencils, knitting, needle point—anything you can do to break the monotony—in your survival kit.
Practicality is all-important, but so are playtime, hobbies, and the arts. We want to keep these things alive because these are the best parts of our civilization—the parts of it we ought to save if we can.
Use your imagination. Keep your mind busy and don’t dwell on what’s going on with the apocalypse.
***
The next three days were brutal and it was hard to have any sort of conviction not to dwell on the apocalypse. Fewer and fewer people were on the radio every day; they were dying. I wondered how many had run out of supplies and how many like Bob had just given up hope.
When we weren’t giving reports or talking to someone on the air I played music. I also had a bunch of books on tape and I started playing an hour of a book each day figuring I’d do it till it was finished and start another one. Those people who had some sort of renewable power source and could listen to the radio just for entertainment would appreciate it.
I woke up, rolled over, looked at the clock, saw it was eight o’clock, and started to roll over and go back to sleep. It was when I did this that I realized that my ribs didn’t hurt. They didn’t hurt at all. I got up walked over and shut and locked the door then crawled back into bed and crawled up too Lucy’s back and started… well you know.
She laughed. “What are you up to?”
“My ribs don’t hurt,” I explained. Then she was all over me.
***
“Damn!” Lucy said looking at the ceiling. “I knew you were good, but when you aren’t hurt… damn!” she said again.
“Yep, once you go whacked you’ll never go back,” I said and pretended like it was the first time I’d used the line as she laughed at my joke.
Then she got up on her elbow, looked at the clock, and her mood changed immediately. Now I need to explain here that I didn’t just give lip service to keeping track of the date. That clock gives the date and the time to the second.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Lucy sighed and flopped back on the bed looking at the ceiling again. “Nothing, nothing.” She just tried to shake whatever it was off, but she obviously couldn’t. I was just hoping it wasn’t something I did, so I didn’t push the issue because… Well I was in a good mood again and I didn’t want anything to ruin it.
